Congratulations Reverence, It's a Trap and Excession. As Vindrik said, good luck with Dread Master Styrak. A lot of that fight will come down to how insane your DPS can be, and how much DPS your healers can put out without letting a tank die... which is a decent amount as the damage output before phase four is pretty nominal if handled right. Although no amount of healing is going to save your tank if they get knocked back next to Dread Master Styrak during phase two.

If you queue our raid group for ranked warzones whilst we're in an Operation, you're going to have a bad time.

Ah, you're right. I think I meant to throw that first part as a response to someone else. Either way, the point remains though. Mathematically speaking if you are going to lose threat, it is better to do so before a taunt. Say the tank has 10,000 threat on the target and a ranged DPS is pushing 12,500. If the tank were to taunt boost off of himself as the ranged DPS uses his drop, the tank will go to 13,000 (assuming he is outside the 4m buffer) and the ranged DPS will drop down (I think it's 25%?) to 9,375, creating a gap of 4,625 threat. However, say the ranged DPS is going to pull aggro a GCD later if this didn't happen. Assume the next GCD has the tank at 11,000 threat (had to use a filler) and the ranged DPS is up to 14,500. The tank will go to 14,300 if he taunt-boosted off of himself at 11,000 threat and had the highest amount of threat. If the ranged DPS threat drops before the taunt, that is what he will be, and the DPS will not be too far behind. However. Say the tank taunts now. They go to 18,850 threat. The DPS now threat dumps, going down to 10,875, creating a more significant gap of 7,975 threat. Math is fun. In short - wait for the tank to taunt back before threat dumping. Usually, you will not drop threat purely by using Surrender - and the tank can benefit from you holding out. For tank swaps, yes... and no. Whilst there are fights that we look to first when we think 'tank swap' (Toth and Zorn, Firebrand and Stormcaller, Dread Guard) - fights with multiple mobs that are separately tanked and swapped at range (although Dread Guards, where after the first phase of the fight, almost all tank swaps are done at point-blank range as Kelsara's tank should be attacking Ciphas almost exclusively). Then there are the fights such as Writhing Horror, where tank swapping is done point-blank. The offtank is going to be in melee range of the target... although the hitbox is massive and odds are you are outside the 4m range, the point remains. Thrasher is another example of this. Dread Master Styrak, another. If you are using taunt-boosting to stack threat, then take note of your positioning. The effectiveness is severely impacted if you are one of those tanks that almost stands inside their target (or if you are tanking a target with a very small hitbox).

Fair point. At least it's not like we have Ero healing!

Desperation is something we are prone to. There was this one time we brought Spk to one of our raids. Hopefully we never sink so low again.

DoT establishment is usually the opener for any class. Or post-opener (gotta love those pre-fight Orbital Strikes) in some cases, but they're always early on when initial threat is vital. That being said, I disagree with the followup statement. The decision to go all out should depend on two factors: how absolutely crucial threat is in the early stages of that specific encounter, and how skilled your tank is at threat generation. Stormcaller used to be the only boss-fight in the recent stages of the game where ripping aggro off of the tank could (very) potentially result in a wipe, although changes to Zorn's positioning used to be a real pain to deal with. Given how most fights are AoE-taunt friendly in the early stages (or you can force an unnecessary tank swap in others if absolutely necessary), going all out should be highly encouraged. I can go through a boss-by-boss rundown of how the tank should be able to handle losing aggro in the initial stages of the fight if needed. Also, one request: if you know you are going to get threat no matter what (it's inevitable - you're a boss and your tank can't match your threat generation) then please wait until the tank has used some form of taunt to get the boss back before you hit your threat-drop. Referring to the above post: Lowering your threat before the tank undoubtedly responds to his/her loss of aggro with a taunt is reducing the effectiveness of that taunt. It is great practice to wait that extra GCD or so. That being said, Gecko, I believe you're not quite right regarding the threat mechanics of taunt. I'm reasonably sure it sets the tank's threat to the amount that would be required to pull aggro off of him/her. Thus if you are say... standing directly inside the hitbox of your target, the increase to your threat would only be 10%, not 30%. (Here's a quote linking to one of the indepth tanking guides to back up the above point):

She's a smart and cautious woman.

*head explodes* That puts our main team at... three clickers? :L Wait, you do that too? I'm not alone in my insecurities about losing keys?!

Woop. Criticism! If that was what the poster was referring to, then it would make perfect sense and I will concede the point. However, that does raise the issue you have mentioned where crafted items were reverse-engineerable for schematics. I personally fall in to the group that believes this should not have been possible... but then again I am an elitist that believes that if you *have* to make near-everything craftable, at least limit the supply to those that actually had the skill and the luck to learn the schematic through a raid. At least then some effort is involved and there is a sense of reward. The achievement system in this game is so widely unused and largely ignored in this game (at least on my server), so frankly the idea had not occurred to me. It certainly would be a viable alternative to gauge some form of competence. Although with this tier of content... /shrug. To each their own. I no longer put much stock in how someone gears. Well, if you gear badly I may think less of you as an intelligent/knowledgeable individual, but that's just me. And I've seen it too... and it does my head in. :L You could lose yourself in these arguments. When you introduce a wide variety of players to varying tiers of content in an online game where there is no direct competition between players (PvE aspects of gameplay), reward based on relevant input makes more sense to me than reward based on the input of others and the amount of ingame currency you can accrue. Now, yes, having shiny gear is all good and well - and who doesn't want to boast that they have the best gear available (rhetoric - some people really don't care) at any given point? But in a game where the content really isn't that challenging, the real reward is the gear. The sense of achievement fades when you look at your progress and think, "geesh - we read the strats right off of dulfy.net and no one died". To me, that is not the example of challenging content that pushes you to the limit. Again, a lot of this is from personal opinion and personal opinion only, but I can safely say that the only intrigue of continued raiding at this stage of the game is the fact that I still need gear to get to BiS, and the only way to do that is through raiding. Not having gear crafted promotes longevity of content where they seem to keep tiers going for months... and months. And months. Drat. I was hoping you would pull out a glove and challenge me to a duel.

Two people commented on your bold damage claim. At least you retracted it. Surrender as a mechanic works fine. I believe it is a percentage-based threat drop that, on its own, will not see you losing threat (confirmation of numbers would be nice from someone knowledgeable). Depending on the boss fight, throttling may be needed (although I cannot think of an individual fight in this tier where doing so is necessary). Pulling threat in the earlier stages of a fight sometimes is not that bad. A fair few tanks have resigned themselves to the fact that shortly post-engagement a DPS will pull aggro (I'm looking at you, Mr. Commando if you're ready this). Tanks should use this to their advantage and time a lovely taunt boost.

Please prove this comment with a combat log uploaded to either torparse or askmrrobot in a fight that is over five minutes of sustained combat. A level 55 Operations Dummy will suffice. Otherwise, I think a lot of people are going to read this and have the same reaction that I did: "This post is riddled with bullsith" Also, if you are pulling aggro so consistently, the tank should guard you. There is no reason why they shouldn't.

Except when he says he wants to come inside because your balcony is cold. That's never the reason why he wants to come inside.

So much republic representation. Congratulations all! Great to see an active raiding community.

Crafting involves the large majority of players in one form or another. The state of Mass Manipulation Generators does not impact the same majority. Those that care enough to critically comment on the current crafting conundrum have most likely already done so. Whilst, sure, you may have received a few more hits linking the thread, I doubt those that are really annoyed/irritated/aggravated/upset/confused/outraged/enraged/various-other-reactions about the state of Mass Manipulation Generators in the game were waiting for was someone to come along and point them to a thread where they could make said comments, considering the specificity of the issue.

Crafting in this sense is not time consuming. When it comes to reverse-engineering hard loot drops, crafting requires a set time investment that is proportional to how quickly you can acquire pieces based on lockouts and how your group handles loot distribution. The argument that it is only works if completing an operation is seen as a means to an end where the end is getting a piece of gear to reverse engineer to then craft (although I would not be surprised if this held true for some players in the old tier)... all of which is rendered redundant in this tier where one cannot get schematics or exotic-grade materials out of reverse-engineering top-tier loot. The only cost for reverse-engineering hard loot drops is the extraction cost and the opportune cost of having that specific modification in your current setup. If it took forty reverse-engineering attempts to learn a schematic, the price paid is (assuming the character with the crafting profession required is not the one with the modification, and further assuming this was before the extraction cost was reduced) approximately 12,000 credits (for an extraction) * 2 (two extractions per required) * 40 (attempts) equaling 960,000 credits. Not a million credits, and certainly not millions. As an added note, forty Dread Guard-tier reverse-engineers must have taken many weeks to accumulate considering each piece will give you two modifications that are reverse-engineerable (three if it is the offhand) which would require some twenty pieces of loot (forty, if the claim of "per modification" is to be taken literally). In my opinion, Eldergame gear should not be craftable under the model that SW:TOR adopted post-Rakata gear. The only viable form of Eldergame crafting (again, in my opinion) is where actual schematics for specific pieces drop in an Operation that are Bind on Pickup. Make the pieces specific in the sense that they cannot be mass-crafted (bind the modifications to that specific slot for example, much like armourings). The crafting cost of this piece should require an item that is also only obtainable from raiding, limiting the output to those who raid (say... an amount of commendations only obtainable through the highest-tier of content) as well as limiting the amount an individual can craft on a weekly basis. Why? Because for top-tier gear to viably enter the market, there should be a throttle on the supply and a limitation on the availability of the piece. You could look at someone with a Best-in-Slot chest piece and the rest of their gear being of an Artifact 28 quality and understand that they did not raid for their gear, they merely had it made. Arguing that gear without a set-bonus is far inferior to top-tier is true by the slightest of slight margins... almost to the point where it's basically saying "99.99% germ free is not 100% germ free". Whilst technically that statement is true, for all intents and purposes it is not. The application of that argument applies only to armourings, which doesn't make up the majority of a stat-budget. Being in say... full Underworld-tier gear with four Arkanian armourings for a desired set-bonus setup is not going to result in a significant gearing difference. ~16 Main Stat before applying talent and Consular/Inquisitor buffs. They should pay as much as they want to pay, providing there is someone selling at that price. Mass Manipulation Generators admittedly have a shockingly low supply, and on certain servers there are close to none entering the market in any given week. Having them as a necessary component to all the modifications classes was probably not the greatest ideas... or they should drop in Storymode Operations... or both. The final part here is what drove me to actually reply. There should be a balance, I agree. However this is where your view and mine differs. I believe the balance is acceptable where it is (albeit some tweaking wouldn't go amiss). Your form of balance sees us back in the days where every second person had top-tier gear - many (not most, because I cannot state that for a fact) of which had not stepped foot inside a top-tier Operation. It was such a flawed system with no real notion of reward. As far as I see it, there are two main points of gear. The first is the perceived social aspect. "That person has the best gear therefore they must be good... (or at least decent)" - that perspective was torn to absolute shreds by the time Rise of the Hutt Cartel launched. It even reached the point where properly itemized best-in-slot was a poor judgement of competency (not that it was a terribly good one to begin with). The second is to complete content of a harder tier. If you are not going to complete this content, why do you want the gear said content drops? Why is it that when something cannot be obtained legitimately through a most reasonably-designed way, we must resort to complaining about inaccessibility. This tier is a *perfect* example. To the competent hardcore raider, both Hardmode Scum and Villainy and Hardmode Terror From Beyond are not difficult Operations. Getting gear as a result of this is not difficult. It takes the small time investment and a bit of luck (or however loot distribution works in your group) on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The gear that the game advises one have going into the highest tier of content is readily obtainable through Hardmode Flashpoints and Storymode Operations, both of which are designed to be easily accessible by the casual gamer. I would argue that the Hardmode Operations of this tier are also designed in the same manner.

Whilst it's understandable to want to bring attention to a thread you have created that may (or may not) be picking up a small following, is it truly necessary to create a new thread in a forum specific to issues that are not related to your thread to get like-minded people that frequent the forum that is not the forum your thread is in to then go and find your specific thread and post that they are indeed like-minded? Furthermore, is it truly necessary to revive the thread about the thread that no one here seemed interested in to say that the focus of the new thread has changed somewhat when those that care about the changed focus of the thread that this thread refers to would probably already be frequenting that thread in the first place?

You confuse me, Grall. In a great way, no doubt. But still... /confusion. +1 for the guide and maintaining it. +5 for knowing what you're talking about. I tip my imaginary hat to you, sir.

No loot? NO LOOT? /rage! Have to love that. Maybe they'll make a "proper" Nightmare mode down the track to coincide with Nightmare S&V/Nightmare TFB, considering the odds are a new tier of gear will come from it too. Did I ever tell you about the time I initiated a pull when we had two people not even zoned into the instance? /is a good tank.

Grats, NS. Didn't know Golden Fury had a Nightmare mode...?

I refrained from making the same comment at great personal expense.

Congrats. Although I don't think this thread keeps track of storymode progression. :L

I'm sure some people do.

Kiari and I winged the circle drops and we one-shot Kephess. Just saying.

Indeed. As far as I know, Reverence is taking an *incredibly* measured pace through progression. Too much so in my opinion given the difficulty, but to each their own. I also think The Jedi Enclave is trying to push into progression again soon, which would be nice to see.

That seems a bit strange to me. I guess that could be because coming out of the last tier we had four competitive guilds (well, three... and then there's NS. ). Pax hasn't really jumped into this thread since 2.0 came out, and... yeah. PoA withdrew for whatever reason.