The weird people you meet in Group Finder.

[fire-breath]

I'm also surprised to hear about people disliking the shuttle strategy. I've personally never had problems with it, as tank, dps, or heals. I've always seen heals/ranged on top, tank/melee dps on ground.

 

Problem with the shuttle exploit is that not all adds might be close to the boss when he explodes. If you handle it properly you can just stackup on the boss where he lands. Even if the tank doesn't have all aggro on the adds its still healable.

I personally hate it to see that at times healers or rdps start to kite those darn adds away from the boss if they got them 1st.

[slafko]

Another note: am I the only one who thinks adding the 180 to ultimate comms was a huge mistake by bioware? Or is it just a 'change is scary' thing?

 

The only huge mistake concerning commendations are the imposed limits.

[slafko]

Hmm... I don't know what to choose...

First method, wich can be perfomed with damage from adds with small chance of wipe, becouse healer can't keep tank alive wile he teared apart by them...

Or second, when tank take damage only from boss...

What to choose... WHAT TO CHOOSE!!!???

 

Choose the one that makes you pay attention and therefore improve your game.

[Halinalle]

Problem with the shuttle exploit is that not all adds might be close to the boss when he explodes. If you handle it properly you can just stackup on the boss where he lands. Even if the tank doesn't have all aggro on the adds its still healable.

 

That's the idea behind that strategy? No need to worry about adds because they try to get healer but can't get close enough to healer.

 

10 Tank tank the boss

20 Healer heals the tank

30 Dps kills the boss

40 If boss killed then tank tanks the adds

50 Dps kills the adds

 

Easy.

[fire-breath]

That's the idea behind that strategy? No need to worry about adds because they try to get healer but can't get close enough to healer.

 

10 Tank tank the boss

20 Healer heals the tank

30 Dps kills the boss

40 If boss killed then tank tanks the adds

50 Dps kills the adds

 

Easy.

 

except that '40 If boss killed then tank tanks the adds' is not the idea. You want them to stay on the healer/rdps so they won't hit anyone.

My issue has more to do with overall lazyness and the extra time it takes to kill the adds. I know full well that its the safest option to do. Doesn't mean I have to like it

[fire-breath]

Another note: am I the only one who thinks adding the 180 to ultimate comms was a huge mistake by bioware? Or is it just a 'change is scary' thing?

 

Its a trend I noticed lately. SWTOR is turning more and more into a game where the brainless can clear much more content than back when it launched. I remember the lv50 HM's from pre 1.2. Even Taral V posed a challenge. You had to cleanse the nade DoT from the last boss since else a dps would lose 75/80% HP. I had at times a run of about 3 hours on Taral. Same with Lost Island. Stuff like that becomes rarer and rarer.

 

We got now the zergfests called tactical flashpoints. Even the korriban and tython fps poses no threat at all if you got 1 member with a slight knowledge of how to do it.

16 man SM opses are also catering to the brainless. Perfect example was when I pugged a DF HM. Obviously we wiped at Draxus. I explained a bit more tactics to a fellow dps'er who cleared it on 16 man HM (achievements said so). His response was that he just do "Pew pew". Obviously we wiped since on 8 man HM everybody must do their job. On 16 man you can slack more. Even Bruce told us so in his latest yellow post

 

These operations will also be for 16-man mode to ensure faster queue times (both 8 and 16 man need 2 tanks and that is typically the gating factor). 16-man is also more forgiving to mistakes and should increase the chances of a successful group.

 

Now that 16 manned opses become even more accessible I fear that SWTOR will dumb down even further in the future

 

As a side note:

At least bolster will make sure that the people wearing OC-enhancements will get bolstered up a bit. I always cry a bit inside when I see people rocking those enhancements. Most won't even know that arkanian enhancements perform better

 

/rant

[Halinalle]

If you think BW makes OPs even easier then why not two man them. I've seen quite many videos people doing it.

[kirbyshocksword]

Can't remember names. All of them were low level Ops (16-19) and they were all new to KDY so I had to explain everything. Smooth run, I started to think they lied about it though. Never trust Imperial Intelligence, I guess.

 

Good thing it wasnt me

Imperial intelligence is fishy though....

[Elusive_Thing]

I still giggle a bit when I think about this... A few weeks back I was leveling my healer Merc. KDY popped and I got a group with an Operative healer, Sorc healer and Smash Juggernaut. We were all between levels 30-51, with Juggernaut being the level 51 fellow. He joked about not being able to die there and oh boy was he right. He did stellar job as the sole DPS (we of course helped) during the first scenario. Then we got the prison scenario and we cleared the first set of cells with no problem. When we ran to the second one, right before he pulled the mob on the platform he literally typed "Let's speed this up! Hold my beer..." and Charged in, but instead of pummeling the group, he Pushed his first victim down.

 

Needless to say, fecal matter started to assume a tangible form as more and more guards, including the angry bonus boss, decided they had to combine their strength to put an end to our genocidal shenanigans. Patiently we waited and started spreading our HoT's, preparing our cooldowns and all that. Once the first suckers were in range, our hulking brute (body type one female) Juggernaut started Smashing away and we eradicated probably two or three dozen enemies in a glorious bloodbath.

 

I know this happens at time, but the "hold my beer" part was hilarious and very accurate. Made an easy routine run that much more fun!

[slafko]

That's the idea behind that strategy? No need to worry about adds because they try to get healer but can't get close enough to healer.

 

If you worry about those adds you're either a bad tank or you need practice. Sometimes even both. Practice brings confidence. Using defeatist, frenchway, tactics will not make you a better player. On the contrary.

[Halinalle]

If you worry about those adds you're either a bad tank or you need practice. Sometimes even both. Practice brings confidence. Using defeatist, frenchway, tactics will not make you a better player. On the contrary.

 

Then why it's so important to kill those adds as fast as possible? Enrage? I didn't know group can wipe because they don't have enough time to kill adds if they use less effective strategy.

 

We play games to have fun. We don't play games as second job (EVE feels like one sometimes...) where "time is money".

Edited May 8, 2014 by Halinalle

[Subach]

Good thing it wasnt me

Imperial intelligence is fishy though....

 

Imperial Intellgence? *rimshot*

[Isaacone]

Wasnt exactly a weird group but a weird moment of epicness. Doing hm cademimu on tht general Ortoll fight. We wiped once but hey the healer was a new 55. On our second run we get ortoll down to about 20% and lose the healer, then we lose the tank shortly after then the other dps. AT the point we lost the other dps I was at about 90% hp and ortoll had about 30k hp. I was able to kill him and end up shakled with 3% hp left. Ive got to say I have had one other time in cademimu where something similar happened but that was me tanking it in sm and we lost both dps right away so me and the healer brought him down. But this was the closest fight ive ever been in there.

[Cox_The_Beast]

Last weird moment happened a few days ago. Leveling my scoundrel healer, made just before double exp, I ran Esseles with really no problem, noone died, I kept them up and even managed to offDPS a few times to speed thing up on thrash - and even on the bosses, much to my surprise.

At any rate, I reach 15 and pick up the Tactical FP Weekly - not sure I should be able to though, it's lvl 55!

Anyway, I queue for KDY twice in a row. First run I have a vanguard tank at around 40, a vanguard dps in the 30es and a shadow dps in the 20es. I get guard, but nevermind, if I offDPS I tent to get agro anyway. However, things don't go that great for me - lots of different mob pullings, and even with guard on me I almost always have agro, even though I don't offDPS because I'm busy keeping the others and myself alive... We go on, nevertheless, and I only die once... falling down a ledge while trying to hit an enemy, not noticing my team tryed to push him down and he got stuck in mid air. We even down the sith boss with ease, no deaths nor drama. Still, in the end they even tell me I heal quite well for a 15 lvl.

Second run, though, goes less smoothly. Team is guardian DPS on the high 40es, sentinel close to that, gunslinger around those levels aswell. Gear was not great, but it should have been manageable. As usual, lots of different mobs pulling, but no mid battle rest! Someone always pulls before we finish a mob. Still, we manage, with me tanking and selfhealing... Until the last boss, the droid. Ugh... he always focused me, and I spent more time selfhealing than doing anything, even moving, my damage coming only from Vital Shots I spread out as a measure to help the others. Still, the boss takes AGES to die, really. I managed to use Cool Head 3 times during that fight. And of course, I died in the end... And noone revived me, they just left group and FP. I was forced to resp... just to get stuck back at start, so no rep token nor comms for me. It was surely a bug so I don't blame them for that, but I wonder, why could they not rez me when I asked twice? I always kept them up and so on...!

Needlessly to say, I decide to let it go for the moment, because after that my will to run FP vanished...

Edited May 8, 2014 by Cox_The_Beast

[Halinalle]

At any rate, I reach 15 and pick up the Tactical FP Weekly - not sure I should be able to though, it's lvl 55!

 

They really need to change that.

 

I managed to use Cool Head 3 times during that fight.

 

Only 3 times... My record is 10x Sabotage -> Cool Head during Station Guardian One fight. I was the only one who killed adds...

 

And of course, I died in the end... And noone revived me, they just left group and FP. I was forced to resp... just to get stuck back at start, so no rep token nor comms for me. It was surely a bug so I don't blame them for that, but I wonder, why could they not rez me when I asked twice? I always kept them up and so on...!

 

Let me guess, they didn't say "Hello" at the beginning or spammed "spacebar!1!!".

 

Just had one of those runs:

- "Spacebar!!"

- Someone thought it would be great if we fight two groups at same time.

- We had one of the difficult elite defenders and of course my tankasin died because I'm noob at tanking.

- No revive from anyone, had to run back there to get my commendation. Wasted my and everyone else's time by doing that.

- I was the only one who said "ty" at the end.

[Cox_The_Beast]

They really need to change that.

 

 

 

Only 3 times... My record is 10x Sabotage -> Cool Head during Station Guardian One fight. I was the only one who killed adds...

 

 

 

Let me guess, they didn't say "Hello" at the beginning or spammed "spacebar!1!!".

 

Just had one of those runs:

- "Spacebar!!"

- Someone thought it would be great if we fight two groups at same time.

- We had one of the difficult elite defenders and of course my tankasin died because I'm noob at tanking.

- No revive from anyone, had to run back there to get my commendation. Wasted my and everyone else's time by doing that.

- I was the only one who said "ty" at the end.

 

Well, never managed those many Cool Heads, until now at least... But we'll see, after all my Scoundrel healer is still 16...

Actually, they were quite vocal, always typing something in chat, on both runs, which is why I was that surprised in the end. They even said goodbye... The real issue with mobs was that I'd have signed up for those 2 groups of mobs at once, if you know what I mean...

Edited May 8, 2014 by Cox_The_Beast

[agusbust]

Recently got my sorc to lvl 50 during double xp and mostly doing KDY so my gear wasn't that great, managed to get some makeb gear from alts and the comms i had and ended up with half of makeb gear and the rest lvl 40ish blues.

So i queue up for a HM lvl 50 FP end up being a healer, with a sniper, marauder and jugg tank on HM foundry. From the first glance to hp the group seemed fine but right as we were pulling the first group of trash i notice the tank is in shien form so i decide to inspect the gear, half of it was lvl 40 green aim pieces but at least it's tank gear so i'll give him that much. I go down really fast because most mobs are hitting me and the dps don't have time to kill them fast. I ask the tank to at least use soresu form, no responce. The sniper tells him the same, still no answer. At that point we just continue with the sniper playing as a tank, and ocassionaly we throw some comment towards the tank to see if he answers.

Most strange part of all was that it went really smooth, prioritizing my heals on the two dps and leaving the tank for when everyone else was at full health we got down every boss without a single wipe, even HK was easy, except for the worm one because i lost a dps around the middle of the fight and then the boss enraged at around 10% health which i'm sure that if i had slightly better gear we would have downed him. The whole run being really fun with the dps discussing who had better aggro and making jokes to eachother. Ended up with a tank on my ingore list and two dps on my friend list.

[Loc_n_lol]

Then why it's so important to kill those adds as fast as possible? Enrage? I didn't know group can wipe because they don't have enough time to kill adds if they use less effective strategy.

Because the adds have a ****ton of health and killing them all manually is insanely boring when there is a purposefully built-in mechanism to instantly get rid of them all...

[BigBreakfast]

I came back around when 2.6 came out after not playing for about 6 so months. Before that, I don't remember anyone ever using this shuttle strat (I certainly never did as a tank). First run back, the tank is telling everyone to jump on the shuttle. I'm lost but I do it anyway. Even as everyone is standing on the shuttle, healer is still getting hit by the adds through the ship and tank just ignores the adds. Healer dies, I die (trying to keep adds off the healer) and we barely avoid a wipe only because we managed to down the boss fast enough. I've seen strat work a grand total of one time and that was because we had a vanguard tank and everyone else was ranged. All other times, it just causes more problems than it needs to.

 

I personally hate it, too many tanks use it as a crutch and they get lazy, thinking that standing on the shuttle immediately solves all the add problems, not realizing that you still can still get hit through the shuttle if you don't los them properly. When I tank, I just do it the old fashioned way, hold aggro on the adds and drag them through the fire. Kills them just as fast, dps is free to focus on boss and healer is completely safe without worrying adds running around them. I've had several groups yell at me why I wasn't using the shuttle and I told them straight up that it wasn't necessary. Some groups get so reliant on exploits and shortcuts that they forget how to just play the game.

 

Like someone else said, if you stand at the very top of the shuttle, between the wings / engines / w/e they are, you won't get hit. But yes, it's really not necessary, and the fight still goes by quickly using standard method. And sometimes those adds do take a while to exterminate after the boss is down. Just once, I saw someone drag them to the edge and toss 'em over the side. And even with the normal method, there are no guarantees that your tank won't still tunnel vision the boss and not pay attention. Honestly though, using both methods with mistakes, that guy probably causes the least wipes.

 

I did it last night on my severely undergeared guardian tank (felt bad for the healer heh) and it worked nicely, with no adds to kill afterwards (again, if you drag the boss to the shuttle, you'll be right next to the adds, and you can aim the boss's flamethrower at them).

 

Our melee dps did cause a few kinks throughout the run though. And by kinks i mean wipes. And by wipes i mean he TWICE aggroed the exact same group below the first elevator of death, the first time causing a wipe. There were also a couple of leap-into-big-mobs-before-the-tank-and-melt-instantly moments (i guess he thought "stay here please so i can group them up" meant CHARGE!!). But that's to be expected from someone with <500 achievement points.

 

He also leaped off the edge at the 2nd elevator to his death. That never gets old

Edited May 8, 2014 by BigBreakfast

[Damask_Rose]

Its a trend I noticed lately. SWTOR is turning more and more into a game where the brainless can clear much more content than back when it launched. I remember the lv50 HM's from pre 1.2. Even Taral V posed a challenge. You had to cleanse the nade DoT from the last boss since else a dps would lose 75/80% HP. I had at times a run of about 3 hours on Taral. Same with Lost Island. Stuff like that becomes rarer and rarer.

 

We got now the zergfests called tactical flashpoints. Even the korriban and tython fps poses no threat at all if you got 1 member with a slight knowledge of how to do it.

16 man SM opses are also catering to the brainless. Perfect example was when I pugged a DF HM. Obviously we wiped at Draxus. I explained a bit more tactics to a fellow dps'er who cleared it on 16 man HM (achievements said so). His response was that he just do "Pew pew". Obviously we wiped since on 8 man HM everybody must do their job. On 16 man you can slack more. Even Bruce told us so in his latest yellow post

 

 

 

Now that 16 manned opses become even more accessible I fear that SWTOR will dumb down even further in the future

 

As a side note:

At least bolster will make sure that the people wearing OC-enhancements will get bolstered up a bit. I always cry a bit inside when I see people rocking those enhancements. Most won't even know that arkanian enhancements perform better

 

/rant

 

Since all of the new content is tied to flahspoints and ops, I think it's fine for story mode to be easy enough for the brainless. Story mode is for the story and hard mode is for the challenge. Yes? Would you rather they put in a solo mode? A lot of people, including me, would love it if all FP and ops had a solo mode to truly appreciate the stories, but Bioware seems to be trying to find ways to encourage reluctant groupers to group instead.

[SW_display_name]

Re: Shuttle strat (and I think this discussion is OK in here, since it's a topic that leads to a lot of Group Finder Stories in my experience).

 

So one side doesn't want to deal with damage from adds, the other side doesn't want to spend time AoE'ing those adds.

 

Wouldn't a hybrid strategy provide both benefits? Bring the boss to the Unstable Fuel (or w/e) point and as the cast goes off, hop off the shuttle and gather everyone on the boss with the adds?

Edited May 8, 2014 by SW_display_name

[venomlash]

Re: Shuttle strat (and I think this discussion is OK in here, since it's a topic that leads to a lot of Group Finder Stories in my experience).

 

So one side doesn't want to deal with damage from adds, the other side doesn't want to spend time AoE'ing those adds.

 

Wouldn't a hybrid strategy provide both benefits? Bring the boss to the Unstable Fuel (or w/e) point and as the cast goes off, hop off the shuttle and gather everyone on the boss with the adds?

 

That's what I've done when tanking. As soon as the Unstable Fuel channel starts, I pop Mass Mind Control and Deflection and deal with the pigberts for a few seconds until they get blown up. Sometimes there are a few stragglers outside the 15m taunt range, if the adds are standing in a weird place as part of their stare-angrily-at-the-healer routine, but they can just be burned down without trouble. Vanguard/Powertech tanks should be able to do that even better because of how their mass taunt works.

[Subach]

Re: Shuttle strat (and I think this discussion is OK in here, since it's a topic that leads to a lot of Group Finder Stories in my experience).

 

So one side doesn't want to deal with damage from adds, the other side doesn't want to spend time AoE'ing those adds.

 

Wouldn't a hybrid strategy provide both benefits? Bring the boss to the Unstable Fuel (or w/e) point and as the cast goes off, hop off the shuttle and gather everyone on the boss with the adds?

 

People are lazy.

[BigBreakfast]

People are lazy.

 

Come now, are you really going to call someone lazy for using the shuttle? I see that being used more often than the old fashioned way. And honestly, it doesn't matter which way is done because it's pretty much the exact same fight, just next to the shuttle instead of out in the open. I still use all the skills in my rotation as tank or dps, including aoe, and a tank can still aim the flamethrower at the adds since they are right next to you.

 

Lazy is running past those pesky turrets right after the boss and waiting in the final chamber to lose aggro. But I love doing that because i hate those darn turrets . Also could be a great way for people to learn how a healer's aggro works (and why guard won't help the healer). I knew how it worked, but sometimes you need to go through it to really understand it. Like one time on my lowbie sorc healer we ran through to skip, tank in the lead. He didn't hit anything (nobody did), we all simply ran through. As tank took damage, i thought, well, a lil bubble won't hurt. Bad mistake: since none of the mobs were being attacked, they ALL immediately turned toward me. I got knocked back to the rail and died with a quickness.

 

Edit: geez, i found a whole lthread about this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=649074.

Like i said though, either way doesn't really matter to me. Sometimes i run to the shuttle and the tank jumps to the guy, so I follow. Sometimes I stand around waiting to see what people do and they say "get on top" so I follow. Either way, it always works out just fine.

Edited May 8, 2014 by BigBreakfast

[Darkelefantos]

New story, because shuttles are a lame thing to talk about

 

My 55 Jugg tank, a 54 Op healer, a 51 Sorc DPS and a 50 (51 after Lorrick) Sniper do Lost Island HM. One of the first things the healer does is state their intention of doing the bonus boss, because "all it is is clicking a few things and then dodging the ice", so I don't mind and the others don't say a thing.

Everything goes fine untill Sav-rak, before that even the droid was a breeze. So at Sav-rak, what happens repeatedly is that the DPS get smashed down into the lava. The first time I fall off because I was an inch too far aswell, the second time Sav-rak kills the healer while he's on the pipe. We wiped twice, which is more than I had expected. Alas, one of the DPS learned and so we make it on the 3rd try. And then we reach the bonus boss.

 

Try one. The boss starts smashing away, the ice is falling down. Remember what the healer said about "dodging"? The DPS didn't, they stood in place and died immediately. Both accomplished this 3 times in the first fight. The boss enrages, I try my best, but he hits me for 17k HP and kills me after a struggle.

2nd attempt, the healer points out that you have to dodge. They do now. Yay. The only trouble is that at like 20% HP, the boss becomes invisible to me, and since Smash was changed I could use exactly one move to do damage to it now. That stupid bug also makes you unable to loot It enrages again, but we manage to kill it in time,

 

And then we get to Lorrick. It goes really well at first. Then he enters the phase with the "burning rakghouls". I have no idea what happened there, but the DPS on Lorrick got super duper low and the raks stunned me and, well, everything went to sh*t so we wipe again (this was the worst experience I've ever had in that FP ).

So we try again, it goes well at first. By the way, we didn't have the DPS to kill the tanks before the adds spawn. And somehow, the Op healer managed to stand behind me while I was dodging Lorrick's Satchel Charges. The healer dies. Our Sorc gives them a combat revive. Not even a minute later, the Sniper does the same thing and dies aswell. We, no, I finished off the doctor, I was the sole survivor. But in this game, you don't get anything for that, do you?

 

Prior to this, I had read lots of nightmarish stories about LI HM, but all my runs had gone pretty smooth. Now I know true terror, though.