Let's assume you're locked out of Annihilation Droid (the first boss) and you have a full group where everybody besides you is unsaved. If you are the instance owner (your name is the one up top on the bar thing), then everybody else will skip the first boss because you've already killed it and will be asked to accept the lock because your instance is further ahead than them. If it is NOT your instance, then you will be unable to enter the instance that has Annihilation Droid alive until it is killed. If it's not the first boss, the instance is linear. So if you're saved to the 3rd boss, you will not be able to complete the 1st 2nd or 3rd this week again. Either your group will be advanced past the 3rd boss, or you will be unable to enter until the first 3 bosses are cleared.

This statement is why the 16 vs 8 man strategy difference comes up. I have healed both 8 and 16 hard mode of this fight. In 8 man, if I put a Force Armor on a double destruction target... that's all they need to survive the DD. The healing is pretty straightforward and I'm sure your strategy works just fine for that. The even split makes sense because there's not THAT much of a healing strain on 8 man. However, on 16 man, my typical "assignment" is to heal on Firebrand as a "swing healer." I heal the Firebrand tank(s), the people on the ground when they take a tick of the shields, and cover the Stormcaller tank & DD's. During double destruction we really don't heal the Firebrand tank at all. If he dips down to like 30% I MIGHT toss a heal his way. The person you were replying to was completely correct about probably 85% of the dmg during a DD being on the Stormcaller side. I'm sure you can understand that with 4 healers and 85% healing needed on 1 side, it would be REALLY silly to block 2 healers from being able to reach or LoS those in need of heals. If you tried to fix it by putting 3 healers on Stormcaller & 1 on Firebrand, then you'd have a healer who was almost always late to a shield and might die from the aoe. Altogether, it's a really subpar plan for 16 man. I'm sure there are guilds out there that do it that way on 16 man, but it takes a lot more effort than it should. Hopefully this makes it a little clearer and we can all agree to say "strategies vary widely in their efficacy between 8 & 16 man."

Here are my priorities for things I want to see added/addressed in the UI: #1 Buffs & Debuffs on Unitframes AND raid frames Healing and not being able to tell when your HoTs will expire is REALLY frustrating. Buffs & Debuffs should be scalable & filterable separate from other aspects of the unitframes & raid frames. If somebody wants their debuffs to be 3 inches across and in the middle of their screen, they should be allowed to have them there. DPS should be able to select to only see the boss's ability debuffs & their own applied debuffs if they so choose. I would ideally like to be able to position my HoTs on the left side of a raid frame health box(medium size), the debuffs I apply to the person in the bottom left (small size), and then the debuffs from the ENCOUNTER on the right (large size). That's just how I would want it set up, not how everybody would want it. #2 Clicking a Nameplate Targets the Unit It is a pain in the butt to click on bodies sometimes and tab-targetting doesn't always work. I should be able to click on a nameplate and target that person/mob. We've had people die on Nightmare Pilgrim because of this malfunction. #3 Mouseover Healing This was mentioned earlier in this thread. I am restating it for emphasis. It's significantly lower than my #1 priority. Overall, currently... issue #1 can make for a lot of frustration in the game. I'm not asking for addons. I'm fine with not having them. I just want raid frames and unitframes that function they way they should.

I think most of the posts have assumed you are working on Hard Mode. Touch is not in story mode Kephess, so you don't have to worry about that. If Tank A is pooping purple circles and it's Tank B that is dying, then it is likely that he's just not getting enough heals. Whether that's because of positioning or slow swap to the new tank or what, I have no way of telling you. Going into the final phase, it's a good idea for your healers to keep all of their hots/bubbles/etc on both tanks, even if the other tank isn't currently taking damage. This buys you some valuable time as you transition between tanks that you don't have to spend applying those things. The cleave is still something to watch for, but in that case Tank A would be the one dying, not Tank B.

Guard reduces damage taken by 5% and threat generated by 25%. A good healer will, in MOST circumstances, be outside of the 15 meter range on guard. In addition, at range, it takes 130% threat to pull off of a tank. This means that the healer will only pull threat on mobs that just aren't being hit. It is the tank & dps's job to hit the mobs. Guard on the healer is not an excuse to use them as a tank. Overall, putting guard on the healer in PvE is generally a worse option than putting it on a dps who is likely to pull threat or "tank" smaller mobs.

Coming from a healing perspective (since your health also relies on us ;P), the way I see it is: a) We already have hots rolling on you full time. MOST of the time those are overheal. Small little shieldable hits that drop you a tiny bit are just going to get healed up by a hot without me having to worry about spending any resources. b) Most of the time as it stands, we heal tanks before they can actually take a 7k heal. This means that there is significant overhealing (like 40% usually). You can afford to be lower health. c) A larger health pool, as Aurojin said above, means I can wait longer to fill up your health pool. This means it gives me time to handle mechanics, top somebody else off, hit a regen button, something. These are all good things. d) By "stacking endurance" the tank is losing pretty minimal numbers of avoidance stats. I'm sure it depends on the tank, but losing 2-4% shield (number is taken from one of our tanks who was swapping out, don't remember the exact number or who it was... OOPS) is really not noticeable from a healing perspective. The added health pool IS noticeable. (I enjoy drooling at 30k health pools ) Overall... we're nowhere near a "mana sponge" situation here. In fact, by stacking endurance our resources tend to be more efficiently used.

I appreciate that some of you have come to this thread to offer "help" with suggestions. If you feel you've been met with anything other than appreciation, it's because I think a lot of players in these guilds have had a similar story to mine and are really just frustrated. We cleared content quickly. We expect to wait for more content. It is COMPLETELY NORMAL to wait for content if you're in the first group of people to clear it. I don't think anybody here is complaining that we're waiting. After we cleared NM KP quickly back in January/February? Many of us did alts. I am currently sitting on 4 full-rakata-or-better 50s. We genuinely looked for things to keep us occupied and engaged in the game. Right now, I personally have no other alts I'm particularly interested in leveling, but I'm leveling 2 slowly just because. We got EC, cleared it quickly, and began the wait again. Some of us hit PVP. Some of us did random crazy things. Some play D3 on non-raid nights now. We are TRYING to stay involved in the game. I go use the group finder to level up my social points. It's not FUN, but I do it because it's there. 1.3 combined with server transfers added at least a sense of excitement that there's "stuff happening." However, with all of that being said, it is a little ridiculous to not only be expected to wait, but to be left completely in the dark about when our waiting is over. I don't think anybody in this thread is stomping their feet saying they want content RIGHT NOW. We simply want communication from Bioware regarding a general idea of how much longer we'll be waiting and what we can expect when the wait is over. No specifics, because we know that's unreasonable and not going to happen.

With the super low pop servers, this really wasn't an issue for us at all. We went out to do Nightmare Pilgrim first thing on Tuesdays and then clear HM EC with the buff, good to go. Now that server transfers have taken place, we know that there will be a guild that starts exactly 1 hour before us every week going out there to kill it. We either have to move our raid start time back, do it on another day, organize something with the other guild, or just suck it up. It is disappointing to not reliably have the buff for all of our clears, but we can certainly clear without it. We'll see how it works out The only real issue I have with it is the 2 hour lockout--I wish it were only 1 hour.

If you feel like you've been taking a lot more loot than other people in the group, it's never a bad move to ASK if you can need something. I'd rather somebody ask than either pass on gear that can help them or need everything in sight and be a loot scrooge.

I think we had that happen this past week as well--or at least it seemed that way! The NP tank kept getting the mark, made it really nice and simple for tanks & healers I like good luck!

Just something that nobody's specifically mentioned about the HM assignment: You're better off if it's somebody who can cleanse themselves--whether that's a healer or a dps is up to your raid, but it definitely helps to be able to cleanse the yellow beam off of yourself while you run around.

This isn't going to be exact math, but it might help you. We ran into enrage for Toth & Zorn when we took 13 people last week. We did NOT wipe to enrage on Nightmare Pilgrim with those 13 people. If you're looking at which boss to consider for progress first for the sake of getting a boss down quickly, I'd head to Nightmare Pilgrim first--it's less finicky.

To the OP: It seems like your major issue isn't with the loot system in general, but with the way BoE's & crafting mats are handled. As Carson posted above, our guild sends all crafting mats to the guild bank. Armorings & such like that are treated as Main Spec items and are distributed just like you would distribute a gear token. I like it this way because those armorings are highly coveted items and they help our raid more than getting more credits for the guild bank would. The crafting mats, while in the guild bank, are used by the guild for gearing us up. They are just kept in a safe place and our guild crafters make things for us and life's good. So it SEEMS to me, that your problem arises with the "you have to buy things back from the guild" part in your scenario. I have had guilds in the past where we did that--but only when the item went to an alt or for offspec or something like that. It seems counter-intuitive to penalize your raiders to improve their performance :\ But that's just my perspective.

I'm kind of sad that nobody wants to sing and dance with us Oh well. I still think it's funny.

Ever wonder what a raiding guild does in those few hours before raid time? Maybe you have heard terrible music made well-known by youtube? Maybe that music gets stuck in your head for hours on end? This probably isn't that. But it's okay. Methodical's very own Tariq takes a Shatner twist on pop music! Enjoy! Nobody's claiming this is high quality video-making or good musical talent. This is what we did in an hour before tonight's raid. I challenge the community to create similarly inspired creations! We'd love to be entertained by the fruits of YOUR boredom!

This was exactly what I was thinking, too. I like that achievements span across all sorts of groups in the player base--the more casual, the hardcore, the raiders, the pvpers, there's something that CAN appeal to anybody. Sure, not everybody's going to chase the carrot, but a lot of people DO find a good sense of accomplishment from completing things like Loremaster. And the number of people who went back & did all of those quests BEFORE there was an achievement was DRAMATICALLY lower than when we had a reward waiting for us at the end

Exactly this I found this to be especially important when I was healing on an operative. I can't tell you how many times I refreshed my hot needlessly because somebody else's stack was about to fall off.

This is exactly what got me. The activities themselves weren't really things I was motivated to go out and do, but it seemed like I was being given a giant to-do list and I just couldn't help but trying to complete them ALL. It wasn't about the points (because let's face it, the points didn't really matter), it was about getting the STUFF for the meta achievements and, well, I liked completing things. I really enjoyed the swooshyding >>

What's great is that it doesn't JUST add single player end game. It adds things you can do solo, or in a group. Some things you'd need a group for, some things you don't. The possibilities really are endless. I realize that not everybody is in the exact same boat. For example, Henu here has 1 alt in full Rakata and wants more single player game. I have 3 or 4 characters in full rakata or better and prefer things I can do in a group but also things to keep me entertained at 3am when not many people are online. My hope is that they add more "time sinks" like achievements. Not everybody will enjoy them or want them, but there's a broad enough appeal that they will enhance the game overall, in my opinion.

Along this line of thinking... 16 man HM drops 2 gear tokens of 2 slots per boss. I believe 8 man HM drops 1 token of 2 slots per boss? So... 16/2 = 8 weeks to get everybody a token for each slot. 8/1 = 8 weeks to get everybody a token for each slot. It's pretty par for the course As for the buff, I think it doesn't go away so it prevents you from taking advantage of it too much. It encourages you to log in or stay logged and DO THINGS. For example, we go do nightmare pilgrim and then do EC right after so we have the buff

This is exactly the kind of scenario I imagined when I was thinking, "Why in the heck are they waiting?" I figure there are people, like you, who WANT to do the content, but because of the server population issues and waiting on server transfers just haven't had the opportunity. I feel for you and don't begrudge you the time to get the progress yourself. I'm sure many in this thread would agree with me that we're willing to wait for you and others in the same boat to get your chance, but we just want to know how long we need to wait. (Albeit willing to wait and WANTING to wait are two totally different things lol) Edit: By the way, I'd highly recommend starting to look for your raiding options BEFORE server transfers come around. Do your research and have a handful of things that look nice

While this WOULD give people interested in PVP something to do, the people who aren't interested would be left in the same boat. The reasons I'm drawn to the idea of an achievement systems are: a) It's not actually content, it's extending the life of existing content b) It's not mandatory for people who don't want it, so nobody's going to be forced to grind something they don't want to grind c) It extends across all aspects of the game so that no group is really forgotten. The biggest thing here is that I think it's a pretty easy system to implement and doesn't require actual content addition. I know we're all screaming out for content, but that's because we eat through the content we do have SO quickly.

The biggest spikes come from dmg that the tank takes when he hasn't been taking dmg for a while (i.e. Empowered Slash which hits for ~12k happens after our tank hasn't been taking any hits from Kephess for ~13 seconds). For this reason, knowing who your next tank is going to be and already having a bubble running on them to start ticking away at the debuff allows you to eat off 4.5k of that 12k and be actively pre-casting for the damage you know WILL be coming. Force Armor is amazing HPS/HPCT and HPF, so why not get the most out of it? By being wise with your bubbles on Kephess and getting the ball rolling well before hand, you have a bubble ready to go to help eat some of the dot damage. I spent like 2 hours tonight going through logs to see if there was an exact ideal way to handle this. It turns out... if you only have 1 sage solo healing the tank on 16 man Hard Mode... the tank will die without cooldowns whether you use the bubble before or after. The difference in the numbers ends up being pretty insignificant. My point here is: Use the bubble. It doesn't matter what your strategy is--to use it as an emergency heal, or to use it preemptively. The point is to use it. The 100-60% Kephess tank damage is no joke and playing the way that you're most comfortable with will probably make a bigger difference than casting your bubble at the exact right second. Also: Savage Wounding is the devil.

Definitely not disagreeing I think I just wanted to reiterate the point since we HAVE been talking about the last phase of Kephess and I'd hate for somebody to be blindly hitting NS on procs in that final phase and be like, "Well these people on the forums told me to! Why'd the tank die?! :(" >> lol

I healed as a priest for a LONG time in WoW. One of the best healing rushes I got was whenever I would Guardian Spirit somebody and it actually procced. It meant that not only did I judge the situation correctly to necessitate the cast, but also I directly single-handedly prevented somebody from dying. I felt like I was the master of reaction and no boss could stand in my way! I really haven't had that rush in TOR because we can't afford to let health bars dip like that and if they do, it's VERY rare that we can actually save the person if they are taking consistent dmg after the spike.