Going back to the ideas of new boss mechanics - When lotro first came out, the main endgame raid (designed for 24 iirc) had a beast of a last boss. Instant kills if you missed mechanics, the group having to split into 2 groups to run to other rooms while the tank and heals stayed on the boss, a friendly NPC intricately involved, and overall a lot of fun with cool rewards (just fighting a balrog was fun even though he was really overweight ). Of course this died down to being 3 manned or even soloed with the level cap up 25 levels, but it was a challenge while it was the top. Something similar would be great. The instance (the rift, check in out on youtube) also had a LOT of bosses, each with mechanics almost as hard as the final boss, and each boss having to be killed in an order to make sure you could kill the next. Some sort of tangible link between bosses makes it more interesting, this could also use a RNG to decide which bosses would apply which buffs to others when dead to add some spice

So what im understanding from this is that half the quitters leave because there arent enough people to play with, and the other half are going to quit because there will be too many people to play with? Just saying

Sticking with it is probably the best strategy I was with LOTRO when they went F2P, half our guild unsubbed and were gone before it even began. And what happened after F2P? More people to group with, content began being released faster, and only marginally more whingers (even then only in the first few zones). People seem to have this idea that as soon as a game goes F2P its gone, this is simply not the case.

While i understand what you guys are getting at, making the game F2P isnt that much of an overall change. I was with LOTRO when they switched to F2P - as a paying member i didnt have to worry about buying the general questing zones, and the monthly store currency was enough to buy all the endgame content i needed. The quality of the players didn't deteriorate either - the endgame was still a bunch of nice guys chatting away on glff, running raids and instances with little to no interjection from whiny kids. People always seem to think that F2P will kill a game, when in reality it gives you more players. People playing for free aren't necessarily going to be children - there's plenty of mature people out there who will take the opertunity to give the game a real shot. The biggest impact that kids will have is on the starter planets, maybe even up as far as nar shaddaa for both sides, but as far as overall game quality goes, you won't be suddenly thrown into CoD chatrooms (a legitimate quote i heard from a guildmate )

When i made my first character (gunslinger), i had almost no idea about the games mechanics, and by the time i saw how awesome scoundrels were it was too late. However, the starting planets take maybe 2-3 hours max to complete every quest, heroic and bonus objective and hit the fleet at lvl 10 (assuming you know where you're going, where to get quests etc), so its not like its a massively wasted effort. Honestly, i think changing your advanced class would be a good idea if they limited it to changing within 1 level of when you first picked. Level 50s getting bored as a healer and reclassing as tank is too far, that basically leaves us with consulars and troopers (inquisitors and bounty hunters) that, with the right funds, could fill any group role whatsoever.

Ah ok assumed the original question was related to the blue death balls, and replied as such. These are un-interruptable as there is no cast time on them. The incinerate ability, which is the other thing you may be talking about now that i look at the comment again, is on a twelve second timer between casts to fit with the 12 second cd of most interrupts. When he casts the first time however seems relatively random - sometimes its the first cast he does, sometimes a while into the fight

Hi Xezkaiel Grabbing the recruit gear is almost always the best option at 50 now that it's free, and the gear is enough to get you rolling on the path to your columi gear. Personally i had a lot of warzone comms saved up before 50 and got a bit of battlemaster, which helped as well. The recruit gear will allow you to tank through all the tier 1 hardmodes and EV SM provided you can learn the fight mechanics well and the heals aren't too lazy. Lost island is probably possible as well if you have a good healer (like rakata gear), i personally got that one done with 2 columi and around 19k hp. The tanking in this game is a lot more skill based than gear based, its only as you reach beyond the casual endgame into hardmode ops that you really need to worry too much about the stats.

I assume there is some kind of system to him casting it - for example he doesn't throw one down instantly ever, instead waiting for a bit after the fight begins. It may be a timer, however im pretty sure its not based on his health as having a good or bad dps team doesnt seem to impact the frequency of casts. Thanks for commenting

This seems like a pretty good strategy, same as i said about HateFrenzy im just leaving the suggestions out here and not editing the main post now Thanks for your input

HateFrenzy - For Boss 2 - LR-5 SENTINEL DROID, it is probably worth mentioning strats. It's one thing to know the mechanics, but another thing entirely to pull off a working strat for this boss. Really nice work - I'd stick it into the original post but its probably better where it is under your name, or even in a thread of its own - thanks

Lol ok, as a tank i don't really know the numbers some of you DPS can put out Just one thing, the numbers i tried to work out don't include any kind of mitigations or resistances the boss may or may not have, so it may actually require more that this

Lol this really is a HUGE wall of text, to the point where it hurt my eyes to scroll down the page i managed to work through it and read your ideas, it does sound like it would be something fun to play, the problem would be in implementing it to be part of an MMO, it sounds very single-player based atm. Im sure that more input to this thread will get the ball rolling, good luck

Nice as i said on your recent post, around 1000 damage per second for each dps is pretty impressive, even more so with a random healer and tank

exactly - i should probably add something at the end of the post relating to gear, but as you said, people that don't know the mechanics are probably the biggest obstacle to getting this instance done

Hey, me again, ty for posting this on my post. According to a website i found, Dr Lorrick has 307812 health on hardmode (which i assume you are referring to), and Aurajiin's info regarding the phase change says he switches to phase 2 at 40%. This means you have to put out around 184687 damage in the space of, idk, lets say 1.5 minutes before he reaches phase 2. This gives us around 1026 DPS per dps member of the group, not counting the damage from the tank. While i by no means have an in-depth knowledge of the top dps rotations, this would probably require some decent gear and a lot of skill. So, gratz on the nice kill, and i'd have to say this is most likely not that common