Lvl 55 HM FP Tuning

[Fingster]

Jeez, far too much smugness "it was too easy" nonsense...i have played all 3 roles in all 4 new HM FPs and i can tell you that the only person in a group who is allowed to be smug is the healer...pure and simple the tank and dps are straight forward but the healer cannot afford to make one mistake. Only post "it was easy" if you are a healer, otherwise your opinion means very very little.

[DarthFamine]

I ran the new mando raiders and hammer station last night on my sage healer.

 

He is in a mix of fully augmented 61/63 gear.

 

I had to be spot on for every pull, but they were doable. We made a few mistakes here and there, and had to learn the fights a bit. and we did wipe a few times on the learning curve. Mostly you just need to be careful , mind cc and don't facepull.

 

All in all I feel they are well balanced. I am also sure that after I get fully geared in the new stuff will seem easy.

Gonna try the other two tonight.

[Aurojiin]

When I healed you it seemed relatively fine; I didn't have to work particularly hard.

 

There's a few factors at play. As you point out, the second revision to defensive stats combined with the apparent lack of rescaling on non-Champion mob DPS means you do get hit fairly hard. Plus, with the revision to stats, we're effectively now at the Tionese level of gear when all is said and done. That being said, it feels different because tank squishiness is much higher than those days, but healing output is also much higher relatively speaking, so the damage profile on trash pulls is much more erratic.

 

Finally, itemisation has been changed considerably. In our first few post-55 flashpoints our Vanguard felt quite squishy. I didn't have any issues keeping him up per se, but I had to focus on healing at least. Now that he's corrected his itemisation I'm starting to do more DPS again

Edited April 17, 2013 by Aurojiin

[DarthFamine]

I agree, I was healing a vanguard and i'm not used to him being so squishy. Once he gets his gear sorted out I think we will be back to business as usual.

[Arch_Angel_Gabe]

In a mix of 61/63 gear. Played as both DPS And Heals on my Commando. This is definitely a step in the right direction for difficulty. I actually would like to see them more difficult, to be honest. I'd like to also see a nightmare mode on these flashpoints. I want a new 'Lost Island' so to speak.

 

Not really sure why people enjoyed their old overpowered 1.7 gear. It is like a game where you use cheat codes. Once you become 'god' the entire games becomes boring after the 1 hour power trip wears off.

 

Before LI was nerfed the first time a few of our guildies wanted a challenge. We bought Tionese gear, did not augment or itemize it and ran the FP. We didin't wipe, but it brought back the 'pay attention or wipe' feel to the game.

 

Anyhow, I was very cynical over this new expansion before I played it. But once I played it, I realized just how good of a job they did with this 'reboot' and new content. Just like anyone though, I'd like to see more flashpoints and more difficulty options. Hopefully with time they won't view 4 man flashpoints as a stepping stone only, and will tune them to be very difficult. Whether they give gear or not isn't too much of a concern to me. Just wanted some strong and difficult FPs and so far we are on the right track.

[XuShaBi]

Trash mobs hitting hard is not just a gear issue. Even with mix 66/69, they still do a lot of damage. There is no where getting around it than to pop yourself cds when it's necessary and healer need to be constantly awake.

[Atramar]

with suggested gear rating 146, it's natural they feel hard when you have gear rating 142.

on other hand, since people are clearing it with gear 132, and the fact that usualy 'suggested' by developers numbers are quite tight (look at EC hm before we got 14 augments for every one), I'd say they are pretty easy... when full group will have suggested 146 gear rating, they will be easy as 50 flashpoints in rakata augumented gear.

[wainot-keel]

Trash mobs hitting hard is not just a gear issue. Even with mix 66/69, they still do a lot of damage. There is no where getting around it than to pop yourself cds when it's necessary and healer need to be constantly awake.

 

That's nice. Less dps going "omg! i'm awesome" pulling before the tank does. Let's see how long it lasts

[DarthFamine]

yeah I had a dps do that on the first pull of mando last night.

He dropped like a stone.

[Atramar]

yeah I had a dps do that on the first pull of mando last night.

He dropped like a stone.

 

dum dum dum, another one bites the dust...

 

what class was he?

[Loknido]

dum dum dum, another one bites the dust...

 

what class was he?

 

I would guess a warrior, they love leaping like idiots.

[Glorthox]

I still think the HM's need to be fine tuned for the typical PUG. If your claiming it to be too easy, you must be running it as a guild and using a form of vent communication. These aren't easy by any means and less enjoyable when you have a 30k repair bill for how many wipes you suffer. If they didn't nerf the tanks something fierce I would run them, but a tank being just as squishy as a dps, now this doesn't make any sense. I love tanking, but the trash mobs and some bosses just nearly two shot me. And I blame the the low % to defense chance.

[Soxbadger]

I agree with Glorthox. I have done every new flashpoint. I have done them exclusively with pre-formed guild groups with all members in mumble. After every death/wipe, we discuss exactly what we did, why we think it didnt work and how we can improve.

 

Right now we are running hmfp almost non-stop to get full black market gear. I run a healer and these fights can be very heal intensive. Especially since I no longer have my set bonus (sorc) which means my innervate is 1.5 seconds slower and I have 50 less force. I think I am a decent player, I am in no way the best, but in general I will save my group more times than I will hurt my group.

 

That being said, there are certain moments in the new flashpoints where my heal burst is just not always enough. This isnt being asleep at the wheel, this is starting the fight with shield, resurgence, hitting innervate as soon as resurgence is done, and then starting to spam heals. If I crit on the right heals, tank survives, if I dont crit, tank dies, dps kill the rest of the mobs, I start writing my apology letter.

 

The other part (and once again this is class by class, role by role) is that I have less force. This is a huge deal because of the innervate slowdown. Now I am forced to use much less efficient heals. This results in my force pool draining quicker, which results in more healer draining their own health to heal. The fun part about this, is that many of the new bosses have aggro dumps. So if you get leaped at during the wrong moment, its a kill.

 

And you can all tell me that its so easy for you, I just really dont believe it. Right now these are challenging. I find that fun and an enjoyable experience because I have the privilege of being part of a guild that has plenty of 55's.

 

The reality is, there is no good answer. They are trying to design content that will make both casual and hardcore gamers happy. The only thing I could think of would have been to make there be 2 tiers of 55 hms. "Hard mode" which is designed for pugs and thus worse drops (daily group finder comms + 1 purple piece + blue pieces) and "Nightmare Mode" with better drops (daily group finder comms + 2 purple + blue)

 

I thought that worked pretty well with Lost Island. I just refused to pug that as a healer. Literally would rather sit and do nothing for 10 minutes in hopes of getting a different que seeing as I could potentially run 2-3 regular 50 hms in the time it took 1 LI to maybe finish.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Soxbadger

[mikebevo]

JOnly post "it was easy" if you are a healer, otherwise your opinion means very very little.

It was easy!

 

Still geared fully optimized dread guard, sawbones healer, have completed all the reworked level 55 HM Flashpoints once, some two and three times and while we averaged about 2 wipes per FP on our initial runs, the second time through have been way easier. First time wipes were largely first time seeing mechanics and LOS issues with the healer (me). While right now, they require the healer to have their full attention on healing, especially on the tank, I can already tell these will quickly become as big a joke as 50 HMFPs with gear and a couple times getting use to proper positioning and mechanics. If anything, I personally would like for the instances to be tightened up some, except for the dog and turrets, they could tone them down a little (joking, they are fine as they are, but they do keep the healers on their toes).

 

We really need to wait to judge them until the entire group is within the gear recommendations otherwise they could nerf something that will be a joke in the proper gear. Energy wise I haven’t had any issues in any of the flashpoints no matter the amount of damage going out, but getting the number of heals out fast enough to offset the amount of damage the tank is taking has been an issue. Second time through some of them, I knew when and where the damage was going to be coming from, so I was hitting big heals on the tank when they were still at 90% to 100% and by the time they got to the tank the tank was taking the damage. Also any sawbones or operative healers, make sure to stealth before any boss pulls and for that matter, any pulls that involve un-CC-able turrets or dog pulls. Two upperhands at the start makes everything easier.

Edited April 17, 2013 by mikebevo

[Soxbadger]

Mike,

 

You can always tell the players who actually have done it/can do it, because they are willing to admit that not every run is 100% clean. I think you make some good points and I think it really puts BW/EA in a tough position. I like that the HM is challenging right now, especially because I am in a guild where there are a lot of 55s. People want to run these, I have completed at least 4 each of the last 2 days, we just finish 1 and move right onto another. Last night when I left as healer, someone else immediately replaced me. No wait time, no que time, just constant action.

 

As a healer Im actually having to think in advance. Like you said, you start to just throw big heals anticipating where the damage is going to be, because the damage burst at times is seemingly faster/harder than the heal burst. I have been feeling the pain of not having enough force, not sure if its just Im not as good as force management or if its an overall problem that other sorcs are having. In a few fights Ive literally had to tell dps "Im out of force, tank is getting the only heals".

 

I just wonder what is going on in pugs. I know my friends in another guild were having much harder times because the problems compound themselves. They dont have the top end gear, they have rakata getting pieces of campaign, 53 gear etc, they dont have augments (although none of my gear is augmented at the moment cause not sure if I want to look like the Noid) and they are not really likely to get someone who is over geared to help drag them through.

 

But like you said, in a few weeks people will star thinking these are too easy. Pretty much once I get my first set bonus back everything should be much easier.

[DarthFamine]

I would guess a warrior, they love leaping like idiots.

 

 

 

Actually he was a slinger, shocked me.

[Khevar]

I still think the HM's need to be fine tuned for the typical PUG. If your claiming it to be too easy, you must be running it as a guild and using a form of vent communication. These aren't easy by any means and less enjoyable when you have a 30k repair bill for how many wipes you suffer. If they didn't nerf the tanks something fierce I would run them, but a tank being just as squishy as a dps, now this doesn't make any sense. I love tanking, but the trash mobs and some bosses just nearly two shot me. And I blame the the low % to defense chance.

The problem here, is that the "typical pug" has been able to overgear the old level 50 HM FPs for so long that they weren't required to bring any skill to the table.

 

Consider the player that wanted to play a Marauder and overleveled most of the content in the game on their way to 50. They get in the habit of leaping off their speeder into any fight, and banging keys until the mob is dead. They hit end-game, are given free Tionese, maybe get yelled at a few times for bad pulls, but then start getting Black Hole gear from all the comms given out like free candy.

 

Any run they do on T1 HM FPs is done vastly overgeared, and are faceroll easy. Then they go into HM LI and complain about how overtuned it is, and how the gear drops just aren't worth it.

 

THESE are the players that are messing up your pugs. Some day soon, level 75 gear will be released, level 72 gear will be available easily for commendations, and the derpers can go back to facerolling the level 55 HM FPs without any care to do a good job.

 

But right now, players don't have enough gear to be sloppy. Rather than retuning the flashpoints for the "typical pug", let's encourage players to coordinate better, pay attention, and follow strategies.

[DarthFamine]

HM LI was overtuned, these new fps do not rise to that level thankfully.

 

I agree with you that they only seem that way at the moment, once everyone gets geared up somewhat it will get better.

[paowee]

They are tuned just fine, imo, running it with DG / BH geared guildies and pugs. I really do not want the game to be nefed any further

[grallmate]

HM LI was overtuned, these new fps do not rise to that level thankfully.

 

I agree with you that they only seem that way at the moment, once everyone gets geared up somewhat it will get better.

 

HM LI was not overtuned at all. It was really well tuned. Bosses were tough if you didn't follow the mechanics and the trash has interesting mechanics but was not hard if you did it right. These new HM FPs aren't really mechanic heavy at all, the trash just hits really hard and the bosses are a walk in the park as long as you don't derp it up.

 

Since I first posted this I'm now in largely 69 pieces and the trash is still ripping me a new one. On the Mando Raiders trash pulls and some of the Cade ones I usually have about 8 seconds before I need a heal or I'm gonna die, even with a CD active. Comparatively, most bosses I can survive upwards of 15 seconds without a heal or a CD. Athiss trash on the other hand is pretty weak and I still haven't gotten Hammer Station thanks to bad RNG.

[grallmate]

They are tuned just fine, imo, running it with DG / BH geared guildies and pugs. I really do not want the game to be nefed any further

 

I'm not saying it should be nerfed at all. My preference would be to tune the bosses up so they are actually harder than the trash.

[paowee]

Yea i was aware of that

[Atramar]

I still think the HM's need to be fine tuned for the typical PUG. If your claiming it to be too easy, you must be running it as a guild and using a form of vent communication. These aren't easy by any means and less enjoyable when you have a 30k repair bill for how many wipes you suffer. If they didn't nerf the tanks something fierce I would run them, but a tank being just as squishy as a dps, now this doesn't make any sense. I love tanking, but the trash mobs and some bosses just nearly two shot me. And I blame the the low % to defense chance.

 

Well. I did HM 55 last night with my guildies, we were all barely few days 55, tank had 28k hp with stim, my sniper about 25k, healer and marauder similar, ofcourse, we all were 61/63 geared with small exceptions. Athiss, only thing killed me once were balls (I didn't know they had range and accidentally got out of LOS from healer-silly me) - same thing killed healer at end of the fight (I aggroed balls all the time for some reason so he didn't know).

was it hard? nope

were we on vent? nope

were we under geared? suggested rating is 156, we all were mostly 146... so a bit.

but yeah, def stats drop from 50 to 55 is hurtful... guess, now every bigger trash pull will require using one def CD from time to time

and hell it was fun

(it's not braging, just a mere observation)

 

Actually he was a slinger, shocked me.

 

that could be 'double tap' hot trigger thing, where you bind cover to same button where on cover bar you have your opening attack.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Atramar

[Lasica]

I think they are fine. I just hit 55 jumped straight into HM Hammer Station in my mix of black hole + pvp gear + 1 piece of basic gear and aside from one wipe on that first big group of droids around the corner from the entrance it was a pretty smooth run.

 

I admit healing got a bit tough on occasions but the group wasn't using any CC at all, just pulling groups of mobs and using aoe to bring them down.

 

The bosses, with the exception of the bonus boss, were considerably easier than normal mode hammer station, especially the last boss who was a breeze. The trash... well a little tough at time, but we only had the one wipe, coincidentally on that same pack low level groups always wipe on so I'd recommend using CC on the elite droids there.

[JSunrider]

Overtuned? Gawha...wha? Hammer and Athiss are extremely easy. Cademimu is PUG-unfriendly with the shackles, but even that is not too bad.

 

Still haven't gotten into a Mando :*(