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

nice to know ill add this to the guide, but i doubt any PUG is gonna pull this off

Awesome, thanks for the tips As i said, i've only run this with PUGs so far so a lot of the intricate details are skipped over in the rush to the finish Editing post now, thanks again

The other night as i prepared to log after finishing my dailies, I stuck up a conversation with some of my newer guild mates regarding LI HM. They seemed to be under the impression that this flashpoint was the equivalent of an operation, and would be impossible to complete with anything less than a well coordinated guild run. Now, this opinion doesn't seem to be that isolated - often when the instances pops for me on group finder, people accept, and immediately run for the hills when they see it's lost island. This type of mentality is really causing annoyance for the many people on our server who know the instance and can run it successfully, as it often takes 3-4 instance pops to get a group that's willing to try even the first boss. So, I decided to post a bit of a guide of the instance to reassure people that completing LI HM is not something to be too afraid of This overview is based mainly around what you will experience running the instance with a PUG, who generally will try to skip as much of the unessential content as possible, and focus on the boss fights which yield maximum reward. The instance begins with a walk through trash mobs, which can be skillfully avoided to reach the first boss without a single fight assuming someone knows the way. If not, the pulls aren't that dangerous. After dodging either some lava or some savrips, you'll reach the first boss. BOSS 1 - PUTRID SHACLAW I don't really remember the names of the bosses, so ill just call them by what i most remember them as. This guy I think of as the beast boss, and he's basically a tank and spank fight. The tank should start and finish the fight on the boss - the three adds which are up at the start can be easily mopped up by DPS. The tank needs to walk backwards the whole fight, and the dps and healer should watch for the yellow circles which appear on the ground. The fight is a bit taxing on the healer as the boss can do some pretty high damage, but if everyone is aware of the fight it should go smoothly. After this, another quick run through trash (this part can't be skipped for the most part), before you reach the boss i'll refer to as the robot. BOSS 2 - LR-5 SENTINEL DROID This guy is without a doubt the toughest boss in the instance. This guy is probably the reason that people are so scared of the instance, as he can stop you in your tracks before you've even passed half way. The fight has a lot of mechanics that require every group member to be aware of, and this is what has given the instance its reputation. However, assuming the people you run the instance with are either: a) familiar with the mechanics, or b) Willing to learn to overcome the difficulties, he shouldn't provide more than 4 or 5 wipes, even with a first time tank. If the fight starts to take longer than this, people will start dropping from the instance, and its a sign that it's probably not going to get done. So, the fight begins when a group member hits the console to your right as you enter the room. However, before this is activated, you can move around the robot, and you should use this to plan the fight out and/or educate the first timers. Before even discussing the boss movement, you need to all be aware of the bosses abilities. The easiest to learn is that at some points (never really bothered to check) adds will spawn - these will be the job of one of the DPS, usually the RDPS if you have one, to pick up as the tank will have his hands full. The boss has 2 cast-time abilities - one is called plasma arc, and is basically just a damage ability that can be ignored. The other is the most important interrupt in the whole instance - incinerate. This is a 3 second cast time ability that will apply a DoT to the tank based on the amount of time it is cast for before it is interrupted. If the channel is interrupted within the first second of channel (i.e before the number on the bar says 2.0), no DoT will be applied. If it is interrupted after 2.0 but before 1.0, 1 stack will be applied - if between 1.0 and 0.0, 2 stacks, and if not interrupted at all, 3 stacks will be applied. Heres the problem - each stack is around about 2k/sec (not exactly sure, this is probably pretty close ) for a few seconds, so 3 stacks on the tank is almost definitely a wipe. Even if an in-combat rez is used, its my experience that the group will still wipe. This ability fits exactly on a 12 sec cooldown shared by most interrupts, and is the reason that plasma arc is left alone. In the event that 3 stacks are placed on the tank, the healer can cleanse these, but they will have to do this relatively quickly to avoid having the tank down 12-18k. Also notable is that the incinerate 'bomb' that the robot uses is a kind of aoe projectile. It can reach the tank from across the room, and if the tank is near any other part member these people will also be hit with the debuff. The boss has another mechanic that makes it even more difficult. At a pretty even interval, he will through a blue circle down at the feet of a group member. This circle becomes a death bubble that quickly drops anyone inside it, so the group has to move to avoid it. The kicker - it gets bigger before it goes away. This means that if you have a melee dps on the boss, the boss will have to be moved away from a circle placed at the bosses feet circle to stop both the tank and the dps from dying. This promotes the strategy of moving the boss in a circle around the room. It also means that RDPS and healers have to be careful where they stand, as a badly placed bubble can corner the group. If done correctly, you can get 2 bubbles on each side of the room, meaning that if your dps is lacking you can reach your starting point after the first bubble is gone. The final challenge - the floor errupts lava in a seemingly random fashion, meaning that as you move the boss you are all likely to take some damage. Some issues that arise in this fight usually center around incinerate more than the bubbles. If the tank is in the process of moving the boss, he is often out of range of it, which means incinerate could be allowed to hit for 3 ticks if the dps aren't interrupting. Personally, I like to interrupt as the tank, as you can never be sure if someone will be able to get theirs off within a second. Usually, i can avoid the DoT completely, but this falls apart when moving the boss. For this reason, it is ideal to tell the dps to always interrupt incinerate as well - their 12 second timer will fit with the ability, and they can get it if the tank is too far away. Wipes in this fight most often occur due to single failed interrupts, or lack of awareness of the bubbles. Providing you have an aware tank, and a smart healer, you can get through this fight relatively easily. After the boss is down, you proceed through some more trash, before reaching an open room with a cage at the end. Just before you reached the room, a cage door will have opened, releasing some mobs which you will have killed. Have the tank proceed into the open room, grab the mobs that will attack, and bring them back inside the cage door. The whole group should stack inside here and kill the mobs. This will cause the miniboss in the main room to not aggro, allowing you to skip a relatively pointless fight. After proceeding a bit further, you will reach a platform overlooking a volcano. BOSS 3 - PROJECT SAV-RAK This is the third boss fight for the instance. After you use the console next to you, the group will travel down a ramp (in cutscene), and be ambushed by a large Savrip (named project savrak iirc). This is a pretty simple boss fight assuming everyone is aware of two simple mechanics. First, the boss will go into a 4.5 second cast time ability called savrip smash. During this time, the group has to run in very close to the boss, like inside his character model. He will then jump, and when he lands the group will be thrown into the air, landing a short way away. The further you are from the center of his model when he jumps, the further you are thrown. Even standing 1-2 meters away can make the boss throw you off the edge - an unrevivable death which will cause the group to have to suicide. After this jump is done, the boss will jump up onto some pipes. There are 3 pipes around the platform, usually referred to as left, middle and right. The tank and 2 dps need to run to the consoles at the foot of each of these (being sure to not fall off the edge), and activate the 9 second channel to spurt fire from each. The healer needs to keep the group alive while the boss throws acid bombs at everyone. After all three are active (the faster you do it, the less burden on the healer), the boss comes back down. You then rinse and repeat the same steps 3-4 more times before he dies. The next step is a fight through a few groups of more difficult trash than before. There are 2 main types of enemies you have to watch out for. The first few mob groups contain some regular trash along with a tech. This tech guy will shield another mob for 100% of inc damage, meaning you have to kill the tech/s first. Later on, medics come up. These guys have some huge heals, and can easily outlast 1 or even 2 dps. These mobs need to be cc'd while you kill the rest of the mobs, and cleared up last - even killing them often requires some 4 sec stuns. The worst pull is the last one of the area, where you will face 2 medics and a tech. 2 cc is preferable, but a freeze clickable thing is available to stun one if you cannot cc both. I should note, at a point here there is a bonus boss called something like transgenic sample 11. As a tank running almost exclusively with PUGs in this instance, I've never actually fought this guy, as PUGs rarely if ever do bonus objectives. I'm lead to believe the fight revolves around dodging falling icicles. Either way, he doesn't drop the good loot you're here for. BOSS 4 - FINAL - DR LORRICK Finally you reach Dr Lorrick, the final boss of the instance. After the cutscene, the group should back away from the boss and have someone run everyone through the strategy. To start with, the tank has to kite the boss counter clockwise around the room, reaching each of the things that look like bacta tanks. The boss has one channeled DPS ability, which can be interrupted if you can spare the time over watching the other mechanics. Its called something like flurry of bolts, and is one of only two uses for interrupts this whole fight. Interrupting it will save the heals some trouble, but it can be healed through. As you kite the boss, he will periodically throw out green gloop, which everyone should stay clear of. Just before he disappears (he does this after a few gloop throws), he throws out bombs in a frontal AoE cone. For this reason, the DPS needs to be behind the boss, as anyone in front will be hit with 4 time delayed bombs which eat hit for around 4k. If the heals is having trouble, the tank should pop cooldowns to mitigate some of this burst damage. Also, if the tank is careful, he can sidestep the bombs (maybe glitch but it seems to work sometimes) and get as few as 2 bombs. However, this can cause the dps to be hit too, which will create a lot of pressure on the heals. These bombs can also be avoided by dodging behind the (now known as thanks to Aurojiin ) kolto tanks. After the boss is gone, the first bacta tank will start up. DPS and tank should beat on this tank as much as possible. After a little bit, the tank breaks and mob spawns, with the same health % the tank had when it went away. Dr Lorrick also comes back, so the tank should pick him up while the dps finishes with the add. You repeat this process a few more times until the boss reaches 40% health. The first phase can be completed with as few as one tank (this has been accomplished by Icecoffee and Charming (the dps) on the Jung Ma server (thanks to bbare for this)). After this, Lorrick will enter phase 2. Here, he will become larger and stop throwing out gloop and bombs, but will have some adds. These adds are burning rakghouls, which move pretty slowly, but if they reach you will stun you and basically end the fight. Zooming out your camera can help for this part, as everyone especially the tank needs to be aware of where these guys are. The longer you take to dps down Lorrick, the more burning rakghouls come, so a quick kill is ideal. These rakghouls can be knocked back by anyone with such an ability if it is needed. Also during this phase, he will jump to a random party member and use an ability called ravage. This should be interrupted asap. At 10% health, he will stop fighting, the rakghouls will die, and he will transform yet again into a huge red rakghoul. He heals back to 100% (maybe not the same total he had at the start, again idk), and starts to do massive damage. The group should have picked a wall of the room (either the door you came in or opposite) to stand on for this phase, as he can knockback and aoe heals can help. This fight can be thought of as a soft enrage, as his damage output is too high to heal through indefinitely by average healers, and it becomes a DPS race. Simply kill the guy, and treat yourself to a columi mainhand and rakata chestpiece. And that's all there is too it. Looking back on all the text i just typed, i suppose it does seem a bit daunting to first timers, but when a group pops its rare to have less that 3 people that know what they're doing. My first run of this instance was as a barely 19k hp tank, wearing 2 columi, 3 BM and the rest recruit gear - yet we still managed to finish with only 3 wipes on robot (although i should probably thank the rakata healer for this ). The instance only seems daunting because of all the mechanics you see listed, but if you break it down its easy to pick up to the point of leading a group through it by your second run. In relation to gear, its probably not optimal to be attempting this as a fresh lvl 50. I managed to get through it with my gear mainly because the healer knew his stuff, and a group with everyone below columi is gonna have some troubles. The instance also drops some pretty good stuff - in fact, as far as level of gear goes its comparable to EV SM (although not the same number of drops). You get a columi piece off the robot and the sav-rak (i think legs from one of them and maybe gloves), transgenic sample 11 drops some kind of relic (although as i said, ive never done that fight to verify), and the last boss dropping the columi weapon and rakata chest piece almost puts it infront of EV. In closing, this is most certainly not the best guide you're going to find on the internet. I merely wanted to try and get my message across that this instance isn't as tough as it is made out to be. If you have the correct health % for boss mechanics, pick up on a spelling or grammar error (i hope not ), or note something I've missed, feel free to let me know, ill update the post whenever i check it next Thanks to Aurojiin for info on some of the details i either forgot or wasn't aware of Thanks to bbare for the info on the fastest phase 1 on Dr Lorrick Thanks to ChewyYui for the reminder to mention gearing EDIT: Seeing as i obviously don't know this instance as well as a lot of you guys, im happy for you to post your own guides/interpretations of the instance as HateFrenzy has, theres some really high quality work there an I look forward to seeing some more on here