Soa Hard Mode RNG Frustrations

[Prossy]

No, this happens sometimes as a bug. I am always the last one down each platform, with several other people also checking each and every pylon to ensure they are destroyed.

 

Its very simple to confirm they are all dead. But yet every once in a while, he just comes out with big AoE for no reason.

 

it's actually not a bug, this happened alot to us when our guild was learning how to do him, it's was because people being over zealous and was moving to next platform before the plyon on the platform was destroyed, when we started moving together as one big group the aoe thing stops

[Inzi]

it's actually not a bug, this happened alot to us when our guild was learning how to do him, it's was because people being over zealous and was moving to next platform before the plyon on the platform was destroyed, when we started moving together as one big group the aoe thing stops

 

Just a heads up: as a healer who stays ahead of the group consistently, it's not about PEOPLE on the platform, it's about the pylons getting killed. Our overzealous raiders would kill the 2nd platform pylon before the first one was dead... and that's what causes the shield stacks to not fall off. This is NOT A BUG and if you DO mess it up, it is easy to heal through it, especially if you use a sniper bubble.

 

 

Not really. We do it on HM and NiM.

 

One pull can be nothing like the next simply because of rng and bugs.

 

I've done this on hard or nightmare every week since mid-January. The only real "RNG" is:

1) Do you get the annoying bug in p3 where the shield doesn't pop when it should?

1a) Do you not have the dps to kill it in fewer shield phases?

1b) Do you not have the ability to eat an enraged phase? (you can, just need to be smart/careful/use cooldowns

 

2) Did a mechanic happen to a raid member who is incapable of handling bad things?

Edited March 10, 2012 by Inzi

[Endowed]

 

I've done this on hard or nightmare every week since mid-January. The only real "RNG" is:

1) Do you get the annoying bug in p3 where the shield doesn't pop when it should?

1a) Do you not have the dps to kill it in fewer shield phases?

1b) Do you not have the ability to eat an enraged phase? (you can, just need to be smart/careful/use cooldowns

 

2) Did a mechanic happen to a raid member who is incapable of handling bad things?

 

*)Does the boss decide he wants to go to the rear-facing of the tank bringing him under the pylon instead of the front.

*)Does the pylon placement, put right along the edge, allow for no time for the tank to bring SOA into the spot and then clear himself from the knockback.

*)Does the pylon spawn on one side and travel across the entire platform to finally stop at.

*) Does the boss stop and cast (once or twice) allowing not enough time when dragging Soa from the center of the room to get placed under the pylon at the edge.

*) Does the tank get put into multiple mindtraps.

*) Do lightning balls 1-hit players to death, when they are full life w/ bubble (18k+5k) on occasions.

*) Does the LBall kill a full health assassin right through force shroud.

 

stuff like that... or whatever

Edited March 10, 2012 by Endowed

[Inzi]

*)Does the boss decide he wants to go to the rear-facing of the tank bringing him under the pylon instead of the front.

--L2tank positioning, this isn't a problem if you maneuver him properly.

 

*)Does the pylon placement, put right along the edge, allow for no time for the tank to bring SOA into the spot and then clear himself from the knockback.

--There is plenty of time to place the boss, the pylons follow a pattern. If they spawn at a particular place, there's only 2 options for where it's going to go. If the tank runs out of time, he can pop a cooldown to eat the pylon. It's better for him to eat it than to miss the pylon hitting the boss.

 

*)Does the pylon spawn on one side and travel across the entire platform to finally stop at.

--This is one of the 2 options. It's predictable and a mechanic. This is not rng.

 

*) Does the boss stop and cast (once or twice) allowing not enough time when dragging Soa from the center of the room to get placed under the pylon at the edge.

--This is a mechanic. It is predictable. You have to position him faster.

 

*) Does the tank get put into multiple mindtraps.

--This is rng, but you can handle it. Have a dps assassin/jugg/powertech taunt the boss & position him while running cooldowns. They might die. That's okay. That's what you have a battlerez for.

 

*) Do lightning balls 1-hit players to death, when they are full life (18k+5k) on occasions.

--They don't need to take the 5k tick, that's their own fault. Also, your healers can prevent that from happening. As a sorc, I make sure each ball target has a shield + resurgence for 10% extra armor. In addition, most classes have a personal cooldown they can use. This is not rng.

 

*) Does the LBall kill a full health assassin right through force shroud.

--This happens if you're targetting something out of range when you activate it and it doesn't actually activate. Not rng.

 

stuff like that... or whatever

[Endowed]

*)Does the boss decide he wants to go to the rear-facing of the tank bringing him under the pylon instead of the front.

--L2tank positioning, this isn't a problem if you maneuver him properly.

 

what the hell are you talking about.

 

we already kill him on NiM and HM.

 

Its not a learn thing. The AI decides to circle to the BACK of the tank.

 

T>P>S (straight line either direction)

 

 

Tank - Pylon - Soa... Soa goes straight to tank is directly under the pylon and then decides to circle to the tanks back who has not moved in several seconds while facing Soa and gettng him into place. This is rare, but its also 100% random.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Endowed

[Endowed]

*) Do lightning balls 1-hit players to death, when they are full life (18k+5k) on occasions.

--They don't need to take the 5k tick, that's their own fault. Also, your healers can prevent that from happening. As a sorc, I make sure each ball target has a shield + resurgence for 10% extra armor. In addition, most classes have a personal cooldown they can use. This is not rng.

 

No, the 18+5 is their life + bubble. There is no tick from a tendril, (even recorded) its juts an explosion big enough to kill them for 23k outright... happens far more often to the Inquisitor classes, btw. Also, the amount of damage does not even flash on the screen in these instances, its just 'dead'.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Endowed

[Inzi]

what the hell are you talking about.

 

we already kill him on NiM and HM.

 

Its not a learn thing. The AI decides to circle to the BACK of the tank.

 

T>P>S (straight line either direction)

 

 

Tank - Pylon - Soa... Soa goes straight to tank is directly under the pylon and then decides to circle to the tanks back who has not moved in several seconds while facing Soa and gettng him into place. This is rare, but its also 100% random.

 

If you're having this problem it IS a learn thing. This happens when you "push" the boss: i.e. you walk into him a tiny bit. It's not random, it's something that is happening because of something your tank is doing.

[Merraith]

Not really. We do it on HM and NiM.

 

One pull can be nothing like the next simply because of rng and bugs.

 

Yes really. So do we. The only thing that we ever deal with being random is people taking an extra shock from lightning balls seemingly after exploding it. We've probably seen a total of 1 or 2 pylons not break Soa's shield in 2+ months, and haven't seen missing floor pieces in over 6 weeks. Whatever we're doing works just fine to avoid these, and every other bit of "RNG" is usually something very simple to control that people don't realize they should be doing.

[Endowed]

If you're having this problem it IS a learn thing. This happens when you "push" the boss: i.e. you walk into him a tiny bit. It's not random, it's something that is happening because of something your tank is doing.

 

They arent moving at all. Even with multiple tanks.

 

Not even a tiny step.

[Inzi]

No, the 18+5 is their life + bubble. There is no tick from a tendril, (even recorded) its juts an explosion big enough to kill them for 23k outright... happens far more often to the Inquisitor classes, btw. Also, the amount of damage does not even flash on the screen in these instances, its just 'dead'.

 

This happened to me once when I force speed'ed through a ball. No force speed = never happened again. In the case that it DID kill me, it was because the ball showed up as hitting me twice. There were damage scrolling text for 2 hits.

 

Edit: this was just after a patch over a month ago.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Inzi

[Endowed]

This happened to me once when I force speed'ed through a ball. No force speed = never happened again. In the case that it DID kill me, it was because the ball showed up as hitting me twice. There were damage scrolling text for 2 hits.

 

Edit: this was just after a patch over a month ago.

 

We dont have anyone force speeding thru balls... that's been a known problem for two+ months.

[Certrean]

Worst part for me was when I just got out of a mind trap and spawned right on top of two lightning balls, one of which spawned for me. Full-> dead in a third of a second, still adjusting to my new naga so I didn't have the thumb speed to press shroud (8 on the naga) in time.

 

Not really a bug, just RNG. It sucks, but I'm optimistic it will get better in the future and fights will be more fun mechanic-wise than RNG based chaos.

[ElitehunterDS]

We've probably seen a total of 1 or 2 pylons not break Soa's shield in 2+ months, and haven't seen missing floor pieces in over 6 weeks. Whatever we're doing works just fine to avoid these, and every other bit of "RNG" is usually something very simple to control that people don't realize they should be doing.

in 5 try this on nightmare we have seen 3 pylons that does nothing, 2 missing floors and invisible lightning balls.. Seriously suck...

When the boss is on 1% on his shield doesnt break from a damn pylons, the only thing you want to see is FUUUU.

 

The worst part? They havent even fixed the damn pylons boss yet, even if their patch say so.

Edited March 10, 2012 by ElitehunterDS

[tigsy]

It's not the fight its you group.

[Flain]

Bad bugs, bad mechanics, bad fight. Bad BW.

[seektravota]

I've been doing Soa on NM for the last 3 weeks... every week one bug, or as our group likes to call them "undocumented feature", gets replaced with another. Lets see if I can list all the RNG/bug elements we get

 

1. Missing floor panels

2. invisible balls

3. Raid indicator only listing 1 name for incoming ball instead of 2 names

4. Cyclone dropping half health player directly on to unexploded ball

5. Player who just exploded a ball being tossed in to a cylcone, and dying because you cant heal them.

6. 1 Healer in mind trap, 1 in cyclone.

7. Main threat holder being tossed in mind trap, then soa attacking someone who is currently being targeted by a ball

8. Ball does double damage = insta kill

9. obolisk is over soa and fails to break his shield

10. phase 3, soa mind traps tank and despawns or does not move towards obolisk as it is about to fall

11. obolisk kills random player who is no where close to landing zone.

12. being dragged in to a mind trap, directly through a ball and being killed by the ball as you enter the trap

13. Battle rez not working when you die to a ball, or cyclone.... or fall damage.... or basically anything.

 

Did I miss anything?

 

you missed

 

14. battle rez kick you out of the instance

15. boss reset for no reason on ground phase

[seektravota]

First, I'd have to say that NiM 8-man versus NiM 16-man is a very different conversation.

 

16m is (IMHO) way easier than 8man. (My opinion is 8man NiM Soa is the hardest fight in the game)

 

With 8man, it can sometimes be a 4-v-Soa fight which gets ugly quick if it happens wrong.

 

1 in a trap, 2 handling their balls, and 1 in the cyclone...depending on the class/role of those who are out of the fight, it can spell disaster if not handled really, REALLY well.

 

As for the above poster asking about the Med armor "weak link" in his group, I'm a Gunslinger and have no problems surviving nearly all Soa encounters.

 

Medpacks, defensive cooldowns, skill tree specs/buffs - you've got to use it all smartly.

 

For the lightning:

* Pay attention to the name calling and red text - as soon as you see your name, move to the outside ring to keep it from crossing the raid.

* I find my ball, haul *** to the ball as quickly as i can - use target of target and minimap to confirm it's yours - use voice chat to coordinate with the other ball handlers

* As i near the ball I hit my dmg absorbing defensive cooldown, and at the very last second I enter cover, giving me those other damage absorbers.

 

If you pause too far from the ball you will take a double tap - 1 "zap" of lightning and 1 for the explosion. This is usually death for me, so I've learned to NOT do it

 

Also, on NiM16 balls are hitting me (without using defensive cooldowns or other reducers) for just over 8k. Any medium armor wearer should be able to have double this HP with appropriate gear so eating the ball full face on isn't even a problem. You must make sure he's running THROUGH the ball and not pausing to get double tapped.

 

Honestly, the only damage a gunslinger (sniper?) should take the entire fight is primarily ball lightning. The tiny DoT on you means nothing overall. Cyclone = half your life which is why you have to make sure you are topped off always (medpacks, aoe heals). If you get dropped (half health) from the cyclone into a ball, that's not the fault of your medium armor - that's the fault of whoever owned that ball and brought it through the middle of the raid.

 

Other tips (some were mentioned):

 

Nameplates on Enemy NPCs so you can see the balls (etc).

 

"Target of Target" helps you find which ball is yours so you can avoid sucking your ball through the middle of the raid.

 

Zoom the mini map all the way out and then time/look for/call the waves of balls and traps - you can see the red dots on your mini map before they actually spawn or aggro. Gives you a couple seconds to prep.

 

Finished NiM 16 last night in 1.5hrs for the title so it's clearly doable.

 

how do you do target of target?

[Boissi]

Alt+t is default.

[Merraith]

in 5 try this on nightmare we have seen 3 pylons that does nothing, 2 missing floors and invisible lightning balls.. Seriously suck...

When the boss is on 1% on his shield doesnt break from a damn pylons, the only thing you want to see is FUUUU.

 

The worst part? They havent even fixed the damn pylons boss yet, even if their patch say so.

 

Invisible lightning balls happen when someone gets tossed or mind trapped when a ball is targeting them, or sometimes if someone kites it for too long without blowing it up. Of course, we just turn nameplates on and we can always still see where they are even when "invisible".

 

I've read some people suggest that moving him too far in the outer area on the bottom can cause the pylons to miss him, whatever our tank does seems to work just fine.

 

Pylons still work same way they have every week. Yeah, they should fix the bugs, but the workarounds all function just fine.

[Inune]

The main problems I've seen with Soa that are outside of the raid's control to a point where it warrants complaining until they get fixed are:

 

 

1)Lightning balls multi-ticking their intended target.

2)Soa resets in P3.

3)Pylons not taking out Soa's shield.

 

 

These are the things that I think actually suck so much fun out of the fight that it's a chore even if you manage to work through them. In addition to them, there are some bugs that by rights should be fixed, although there's a work around for them:

 

 

4)Missing pieces of floor (reset the instance every time you wipe)

5)Gripped person during P2->P3 transition being sent to the Twilight Zone (just don't push the phase during grip)

6)Lightning Balls going invisible. (Use nameplates)

7)Shield staying up after transition despite killing all the energy node things. (Make sure first energy node thing dies first)

8)People being unable to see spell effects during P1 (applies to other bosses, too; just call out over vent/mumble for them to move).

 

 

And then there are just some things that I personally think are stupid mechanics for a raid boss, despite being probably intended:

 

 

9)Person focused with lightning ball being targeted by grip in P2

10)Tank able to be mindtrapped during P3

11)Soa moving slow as **** in P3, despite unpredictable Pylon impact locations.

12)Lack of ground effect showing Pylon impact site.

 

 

There are definitely ways to deal with these. For example, you can mitigate (10) by running two tanks or having a DPS with a tank CD taunt. That said, I think they just kinda take fun out of what would otherwise be a pretty fun fight. As Paragon's Lazei said, there's no such thing as "RNG," there's only people failing to respond to something (http://www.paragon.fi/blogs/rng-not-excuse). On the other hand, the things above, except (12), start to stretch the RNG factor to the point where it becomes frustrating innately rather than frustrating when you fail at it (compare to the RNG of lightning ball targets - an interesting and possibly fun mechanic innately; frustrating when your raiders can't handle it).

 

(12) I think is just kind of dumb given the fact that pylons typically hover at a height where you have to specifically contort your camera to see them and it seems like every other time this has been the case in any MMO I've played, you're given visual warning on the ground so that you don't have to play camera acrobatics. Admittedly, this is largely a point of aesthetics rather than a point of difficulty.

 

 

If you're failing at (1)-(3), I think you're rightfully indignant at the developers. If you're failing to (4)-(8), yeah, it's probably still on the developers but c'mon you can work around those. If you're failing at anything else, it's probably an issue somewhere in your raid's performance (disclaimer: there are some things mentioned in this thread, like pylons killing someone nowhere near them, that I've never seen, so I can't really comment on them).

Edited March 10, 2012 by Inune

[yzzArc]

Any tips on not having the balls tick multiple times on Nightmare. This is the only part of the fight we are having trouble with, and the 3rd pylon not working.

 

It seems that our sorcerers die from the multiple ticks 9 times out of 10, our BHs and Warriors can survive the multiple ticks. It doesn't matter it they run through the ball, run up to it and stop in the middle, sprint through it, or stand still and let it hit them. The balls tick multiple times and kill them, even when they have the bubble and full health. They are all full or nearly full Rakata, just missing the chest for the most part. Any tips, its the only fight we have any trouble with on Nightmare. This is for 8 man.

Edited March 10, 2012 by yzzArc

[Inune]

I have no idea what causes balls to multi-tick on people.

 

I've run through balls head-on with their movement and at an angle; I've run through balls with force speed and at normal run speed; I've run through them with and without Force Armor... I've even tried jumping on them just on the off chance that it would do something.

 

For all the things I've tried, I've seen both multi-ticks and expected behavior out of them in every condition. My best guess is that they have a rate at which they AE pulse and if you're unlucky enough to run through one while it's pulsing it has a chance to go haywire and hit you upwards of 3-4 times depending.

 

How you're supposed to tell that it's between AE pulses so you can safely detonate it? Hell if I know.

[XxGodIsDeadXx]

I've been doing Soa on NM for the last 3 weeks... every week one bug, or as our group likes to call them "undocumented feature", gets replaced with another. Lets see if I can list all the RNG/bug elements we get

 

1. Missing floor panels

2. invisible balls

3. Raid indicator only listing 1 name for incoming ball instead of 2 names

4. Cyclone dropping half health player directly on to unexploded ball

5. Player who just exploded a ball being tossed in to a cylcone, and dying because you cant heal them.

6. 1 Healer in mind trap, 1 in cyclone.

7. Main threat holder being tossed in mind trap, then soa attacking someone who is currently being targeted by a ball

8. Ball does double damage = insta kill

9. obolisk is over soa and fails to break his shield

10. phase 3, soa mind traps tank and despawns or does not move towards obolisk as it is about to fall

11. obolisk kills random player who is no where close to landing zone.

12. being dragged in to a mind trap, directly through a ball and being killed by the ball as you enter the trap

13. Battle rez not working when you die to a ball, or cyclone.... or fall damage.... or basically anything.

 

Did I miss anything?

 

UHMMMMMMMM, ya...the run you have to endure after every wipe because you had to reset the instance because SoA bugged. The fing speeder bugs everytime and never drops you off where it should. It makes wiping a chore. Please BW, dont fix this after how many patches, i enjoy running from Gharj.

[Darzk]

I had one happen last night I hadnt seen before - I got nailed by the pylon while IN a mindtrap.

 

Im hearing running 1 tank 3 healers and a dps that can offtank as ideal over our current 2 tanks 2 healers setup is more ideal, but hate to swap players or respec for single fights... offtank in dps gear and lightning sorc as offheals?

 

Did not know ball lightning targeted thier targets (if that makes sense?), thanks. Will help a lot, some of our raid group is having difficulty telling which ball they have (esp if 2x melee are targeted)

 

We were having a ton of the AoE bugs when killing all the pylons, likely because #3 was often getting killed before #2 (damn antsy ranged dps).

 

My current #1 issue is dealing with the LB damage. We had a damn perfectly organized op still wipe just because our 2 healers couldnt keep up with the lb damage when it ticks, then explodes, then ticks again on damn nearly every person running into it.

 

On top of that we had a stray LB come into the middle group, didnt know what was causing it, guess it's target was thrown.

 

 

 

The problem with some of the ops bugs is the attitude that 'the workaround is functional so its okay'. This is NOT OKAY. Having a workaround is not the equivalent of solving the bug. Having to jump through random hoops that weren't intended game mechanics is not 'making it harder'; its buggy, plain and simple.

 

Heavy RNG fights are okay. Having RNG stack on RNG is okay as long as its rare (Brez rare) or manageable. Having mechaincs breaking the fight, such as pillar rng, missing floor panels, random AoE /w killing pylons, invisible game effects... no. Just no. Hopefully the new ops will include more internal cooldowns preventing stacking RNG and less bugs.

 

 

 

 

Also, people keep talking about known bugs and known fixes? Anyone have a comprehensive link to these? Half the workarounds I'm hearing here for the first time, as some of the bugs never came up before and we prefer to learn the encounters by trial+error. But you cant really trial+error what causes a bug.

[Grapenut]

Look on the bright side. They are fixing medpacks in 1.2 so you can only use it once during the fight. That should improve these issues.