Your Personal Progression

[FerkWork]

I've seen many negative posts complaining about difficulty and claiming that "average" people are quitting over difficulty. This thread is not about that. Instead I would like to focus on the average people who stay and strive for progression. Who stay after every wipe. While threads dedicated to the newest content exist what about those who don't finish first or 10th (On my JC server one only first 10 kills count) but still go out there and try to down the content even if it takes far more time than those at the top or those who may have been absent from the game at the time. This idea of a thread like this has been for a while but with so many slinging the term elitist at those who raid, is that a fair assessment? I like to use an analogy of soccer (football for those silly Europeans ). While played at the top level among the best its also played in pick up games, high school, Rec leagues and others. Are skill levels different? Yes, but the content remains the same due and objective of comepleting are the same. Same about raiding. While those who complete it get their justly deserved recognition, I would like to dedicate this thread to those everyones personal progression. Also for those who may have missed content and finally was able to complete are also welcome.

 

To bring a more positive thread anyone and all is welcome to post below about triumph they have had recently no matter OP or difficulty level as we all start somewhere and my goal with such a thread is to show that raiders aren't all elitist a snobs and this belief that once content is cleared to a degree or extra levels are introduced it is no longer worthy to be cleared. I hope this sparks interest in showing "casuals" that raiding isn't populated by bad elitists and that the fun comes from challenge of working with your ops group.

 

Thus, post below your most recent accomplishment by your raid team/guild that you are proud of. And it could be any OP, whether you beat DF first time or Coritanni on HM. Throw in Screenshots if you want. It's your progression.

 

EDIT Clarification: While I originally intended this to be about literal progression of any kind (That's a lie I may have been drinking while writing this thread ) It is can also be about personal accomplishments of parsing higher learning another class better (One day I will roll a sniper *Pun intended*), getting better at a phase during a fight, Or anything that improved your progression as a player (Still probable not making sense but YOLO )

 

 

Cheers and Raid on

Edited March 5, 2015 by FerkWork

[SpikeSaber]

Finished 10 out of 10 in new HM's. But that is no reason to stop playing, people still need to gear up all characters and prepare for Nightmares. I just enjoy raiding even old content seems rly nice, even thou its quite easier now than before.

For example in previous tier of content I wasnt able to kill council pre 3.0, simply cause the guild that I was in back then simply focused on killing brontes pre 3.0 that was my goal also and we did it, but for council we didint have willingness to go there or try it cause only 1 week left till 3.0. Still there are lots of things to do besides clearing content on 8man you can also do it on 16.

Yesterday for example we killed Cora and then went and did both timed runs on DP and DF and it was tons of fun Even thou we did some silly mistakes on some bosses we still cleared it in under 45mins.

[LukeTheGeek]

My guild isn't exactly what you call hardcore, sure we all play a few hours a day but we're not that intense over it. We finally cleared Bulo HM after a few weeks of trying and we enjoy the challenge

[Shwarzchild]

My guild isn't exactly what you call hardcore, sure we all play a few hours a day but we're not that intense over it. We finally cleared Bulo HM after a few weeks of trying and we enjoy the challenge

 

thats awesome congrats. my guild is still on bulo.

[LukeTheGeek]

thats awesome congrats. my guild is still on bulo.

 

We used 2 merc dps to do the barrels, it takes a few hundred wipes but you'll get there!

[DieGhostDie]

Gonna bump for the sake of this positive thread.

 

So I was recently 10/10 in HM ops a few weeks ago on my Sniper. I was quite exhilarated from my Revan kill (in fact, my hands were shaking even after the clear). However, I wasn't too happy with my Machine Core performance in terms of DPS, but to be realistic, I had to focus on mechanics more than optimizing my personal gameplay. That was more fun to getting it down than epeening for the highest DPS possible.

 

I hope to get on Revan again at some point as Marksmanship. Gear really doesn't matter to me, but rather optimizing myself for the Core phase will be my biggest payoff yet.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I still need to finish the Revan story line with my 2 most high-level chars ... That's my personal progression, yes ... For a Story Player, that is ...

[Merlinmagus]

After 2 years of being vg tank now with the new guild I have to be dps. Last week I just got 4th token piece and finally I started to getting used to dpsing (around 3k, was 1.8k when I was asked to actually care about dps).

 

We are still having hard times with HM Bulo but at first try(3 weeks ago) it was 86% hp remain, now we are at 46%

[FerkWork]

Glad this is back on top but anyways I have two:

 

I was late to the game and missed among other things DF and DP NiM. My old guild was more interested in doing Conquest and Ranked PvP at the time so we never did it. Fast forward a week ago my new guild is doing a NiM DF run and I was like sweet never did it before but what the heck. Read the guides watched the videos. Got in it was a blast despite being confused half the time. The guildes who ran it were all rusty but we went 3/5 before getting tired. To me it was so much fun to finally get down some old content I had never done.

 

The other one was finally parsing more than 4k in a fight (On Bulo) besides Malaphar on my Lightening Sorc and only playing it since 3.0 launched (Switched it from heals). But still got to practice more.

 

But keep the posts coming! I enjoy reading them all.

[Shwarzchild]

Glad this is back on top but anyways I have two:

 

I was late to the game and missed among other things DF and DP NiM. My old guild was more interested in doing Conquest and Ranked PvP at the time so we never did it. Fast forward a week ago my new guild is doing a NiM DF run and I was like sweet never did it before but what the heck. Read the guides watched the videos. Got in it was a blast despite being confused half the time. The guildes who ran it were all rusty but we went 3/5 before getting tired. To me it was so much fun to finally get down some old content I had never done.

 

The other one was finally parsing more than 4k in a fight (On Bulo) besides Malaphar on my Lightening Sorc and only playing it since 3.0 launched (Switched it from heals). But still got to practice more.

 

But keep the posts coming! I enjoy reading them all.

 

I am so jealous that you're clearing NiM DF and DP. Congrats on clearing those!

[FerkWork]

Clarification: While I originally intended this to be about literal progression of any kind (That's a lie I may have been drinking while writing this thread ) It is can also be about personal accomplishments of parsing higher learning another class better (One day I will roll a sniper *Pun intended*), getting better at a phase during a fight, Or anything that improved your progression as a player (Still probable not making sense but YOLO )

 

 

LETS GET THE POSITIVITY FLOWING

Edited March 5, 2015 by FerkWork

[FerkWork]

After 2 years of being vg tank now with the new guild I have to be dps. Last week I just got 4th token piece and finally I started to getting used to dpsing (around 3k, was 1.8k when I was asked to actually care about dps).

 

We are still having hard times with HM Bulo but at first try(3 weeks ago) it was 86% hp remain, now we are at 46%

 

Thats awesome keep going!

[Ardarell_Solo]

That's a very nice idea, thank you for starting this thread!

 

While I am in a semi progression guild these days and currently at Temple HM 4/5 and Ravagers HM 3/5, my most valued moment of personal progression happened a long time ago:

 

Having never played an MMO before, I used to avoid group play when I started SWTOR (which I had to start playing because STAR WARS!!!) in early 2012. Still I wanted to gear up my Sentinel the best way possible, so I did tons of solo PvP, which seemed like the best option accessible.

 

One fine day a guy on the fleet whispered me that his guild was looking for a DPS for Eternity Vault SM that night. I told him that I had never raided before, had no Teamspeak/Mumble, no PvE gear and essentially no idea of what I was supposed to be doing at all. He said: "Just do what you do in PvP: kill stuff. I will tell you what to attack".

 

So he took me along and I got to see my first Ops ever. Words fail me to describe the epicness of that experience, starting with approaching that big droid in the snowy mist until hearing Soa's voice for the first time. Being allowed to join that guy's guild and being taught the basics of raiding in the months to come was such a blessing and the biggest step in personal progression in this game for me. :-)

 

Since then I vowed to always follow two rules:

 

1. Try new stuff. You learn something. Even if the stuff sucks.

2. If you know stuff, help others. Especially if they ask you to.

[Jerba]

I am leading a raid group each Friday and I find it very enjoyable. We are certainly not the best raid group but we don't give up. Our main problem has always been that we were low on DPS which is why we have to come up with much more difficult strategies than the world first guilds. Those guilds can just blow through all the mechanics with enough DPS while we wipe on some simple DPS checks. For example, we were the first group to try to solo tank the walkers in ToS and now many groups on our server have copied our strategy because it is just easier for a non-world first group.

 

It is certainly frustrating when you hit a wall and have no way to progress against it due to low DPS but we'll manage.

What's more important for me is that everyone enjoys their raiding time, therefore I always talk to the players and ask them if they are still having fun or if they want something to change. It is very important for me to have players that are not raidloggers but who login nearly every day, do some dailies, some flashpoints, run some PuG raids and not just come online for the raid.

When we were bored with wiping on Ravagers/ToS HM, we did S&V NiM for a few weeks and were able to get all the survival and timerun achievements that we missed when we did it during progression 1.5 years ago.

 

Outside of my raid group, I always try to find as many PuG raids as possible. A good raidleader needs to run with other groups, get to know other strategies or what problems other groups are facing because that's the only way you know which call to make when your group faces the same problem.

Also, now that we are doing HM, I use my SM lockout to organize PuG runs myself and explain the bosses to new players. Way too many raidleaders bore players with a 10 minute explanation of a boss or leave out the most important details. I always explain the most important mechanics in 30 seconds and point out everything else during the boss fight and it has shown success, even with the worst DPS who managed to have every single one of the new level 60 bosses go enrage.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Jerba

[Asaxor]

Can you explain how to solo tank the walkers in ToS?

[Saenth]

Can you explain how to solo tank the walkers in ToS?

 

The essential idea is as follows:

 

1) The raid group needs to make sure to stay well clear of the tank since they will be kiting AOEs from both walkers. Also, Unit 1 will Mega Blast the raid if they are caught in the middle.

 

2) Have the solo tank start by aggroing Unit 2, with all DPS on Unit 1. The solo tank should put all of his normal tank aggro GCDs into Unit 2, but all of his taunts into Unit 1 starting about 5-10 seconds into the fight (let the DPS have threat for the beginning and then build off their threat, but take Unit 1 before the first Rapid Fire). Throughout the fight, the tank need only attack Unit 2, but keep taunting Unit 1 on cooldown.

 

3) From there, proceed normally with all the mechanics. The solo tank will be need considerable healing but it can easily be done with a normal two healer composition, and if well geared, even a solo healer on SM.

[Jerba]

Can you explain how to solo tank the walkers in ToS?

I explained our strategy in detail in a separate thread but it's basically like Saenth wrote. The advantage is that you can take along three healers and therefore be able to heal away more damage if you have players who are having trouble moving out of the red circles and still keeping up high DPS. The walkers don't deal too much damage to the tanks so it is still healable if one tank takes both walkers.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Jerba

[FerkWork]

When we were bored with wiping on Ravagers/ToS HM, we did S&V NiM for a few weeks and were able to get all the survival and timerun achievements that we missed when we did it during progression 1.5 years ago.

 

SnV is one of my favorite Ops and I will one day find peeps to do it on NiM (that and TFB). That and the timed achievement titles. I don't think I've ever been in a SnV even on SM that hasn't gone for under 2 hours

 

Funny, I had a similar story with this being my first MMO and doing the ole EV. I was lv 54 and wanted to do one and never did it before so I joined a group (Just saw EV in it didn't understand all the other jargon)and was like dang how these people have 30k health. Told them it was my first time doing an Ops. Also it was NiM so when I first time I saw the timer come up I was thought we have that lot long to finish or we die. After running around crazily on my Mara at the first boss and spending the next fight dead for most of it we get to third boss and and timer says 1:30 left and I blurted in chat that we got to hurry or we will die. Got many laughs and "u serious brah?" Until someone explained to me that's not the case. On last boss they forgot to tell me to run back so I die on the first platform collapse. But it was fun.

Side note: On my first SnV someone said there was a datacron in the sarlaac so the guilloble me jumped down and everyone was groaning and saying something's not right with him. I think I've gone a long way from that (July 2014 )

 

Another note: I was really confused on lingo. When people kept typing in Bio in chat I thought they had some studying to do or something Eventually I googled it.

Edited March 5, 2015 by FerkWork

[SpikeSaber]

That's a very nice idea, thank you for starting this thread!

 

While I am in a semi progression guild these days and currently at Temple HM 4/5 and Ravagers HM 3/5, my most valued moment of personal progression happened a long time ago:

 

Having never played an MMO before, I used to avoid group play when I started SWTOR (which I had to start playing because STAR WARS!!!) in early 2012. Still I wanted to gear up my Sentinel the best way possible, so I did tons of solo PvP, which seemed like the best option accessible.

 

One fine day a guy on the fleet whispered me that his guild was looking for a DPS for Eternity Vault SM that night. I told him that I had never raided before, had no Teamspeak/Mumble, no PvE gear and essentially no idea of what I was supposed to be doing at all. He said: "Just do what you do in PvP: kill stuff. I will tell you what to attack".

 

So he took me along and I got to see my first Ops ever. Words fail me to describe the epicness of that experience, starting with approaching that big droid in the snowy mist until hearing Soa's voice for the first time. Being allowed to join that guy's guild and being taught the basics of raiding in the months to come was such a blessing and the biggest step in personal progression in this game for me. :-)

 

Since then I vowed to always follow two rules:

 

1. Try new stuff. You learn something. Even if the stuff sucks.

2. If you know stuff, help others. Especially if they ask you to.

 

Oh man, I Totally understand you My first raid was Eternity Vault aswell, and I was so amazed by it. But when I started to play DF and DP were already released

[rawtravel]

I play most nights right before bedtime. I get 60-90 minutes to play, so I really don't have time for Operations. I just do the FPs, which I still enjoy. My Jugg tank was basically maxed out, with the best gear I could get (pre 3.0) without ever doing an Operation. I still enjoy the FPs and find that I know them so well, that I can be a teacher for the newer folks, which is very rewarding.

 

One night, I logged in early, with about 3 hours to burn before bedtime! Saw "LFM 1 Tank for DP SM" and I reluctantly whispered the guy. Told him before he invited me that I have never done the Op before, but that I think I'm a decent tank. He said "cool" and I was in.

 

I was incredibly nervous about this, as I am an avid reader of "Weird People You Find in Group Finder" thread, and halfway expected to be kicked on sight, due to my crappy (no set bonuses) comm gear. It was 16 man and comprised mostly of one guild. They were all so very nice to me! The main tank was the leader and made sure that I knew what to do for each fight, even trash. Simple things like "you take the left one and tank him against North wall", or "you'll need to taunt the boss off me when "X" happens", etc.

 

Going in I figured I would be in way over my head and be ridiculed as a "noob"...L2P, etc., but I think that maybe I was right about being a decent tank, because no one ever yelled at or tried to kick me! Of course, I did die a few times by standing in wrong place or not tanking the right things, since all the mechanics were brand new, so I was at least partially carried.

 

We cleared it and after the zone out my heart was warmed by all the op chat. Folks were like "Well, I thought we were screwed with noob off-tank, but it wasn't that bad", and "are you sure it's your first op?" , "nice job (my name)", etc. The guild even invited me to join as they were looking to expand their raid teams and could use a good tank! Wow!

 

Having time to do ops is still my big problem, but if I ever do have time, then at least I won't be so scared. Heck, I even have a "cheev" I can link now!

 

Teal-Dear - There are some nice/helpful guilds out there who will accept/teach/carry a player who is a little green. Don't get discouraged by the l33t-jerks.

[Merlinmagus]

I play most nights right before bedtime. I get 60-90 minutes to play, so I really don't have time for Operations. I just do the FPs, which I still enjoy. My Jugg tank was basically maxed out, with the best gear I could get (pre 3.0) without ever doing an Operation. I still enjoy the FPs and find that I know them so well, that I can be a teacher for the newer folks, which is very rewarding.

 

One night, I logged in early, with about 3 hours to burn before bedtime! Saw "LFM 1 Tank for DP SM" and I reluctantly whispered the guy. Told him before he invited me that I have never done the Op before, but that I think I'm a decent tank. He said "cool" and I was in.

 

I was incredibly nervous about this, as I am an avid reader of "Weird People You Find in Group Finder" thread, and halfway expected to be kicked on sight, due to my crappy (no set bonuses) comm gear. It was 16 man and comprised mostly of one guild. They were all so very nice to me! The main tank was the leader and made sure that I knew what to do for each fight, even trash. Simple things like "you take the left one and tank him against North wall", or "you'll need to taunt the boss off me when "X" happens", etc.

 

Going in I figured I would be in way over my head and be ridiculed as a "noob"...L2P, etc., but I think that maybe I was right about being a decent tank, because no one ever yelled at or tried to kick me! Of course, I did die a few times by standing in wrong place or not tanking the right things, since all the mechanics were brand new, so I was at least partially carried.

 

We cleared it and after the zone out my heart was warmed by all the op chat. Folks were like "Well, I thought we were screwed with noob off-tank, but it wasn't that bad", and "are you sure it's your first op?" , "nice job (my name)", etc. The guild even invited me to join as they were looking to expand their raid teams and could use a good tank! Wow!

 

Having time to do ops is still my big problem, but if I ever do have time, then at least I won't be so scared. Heck, I even have a "cheev" I can link now!

 

Teal-Dear - There are some nice/helpful guilds out there who will accept/teach/carry a player who is a little green. Don't get discouraged by the l33t-jerks.

 

Congrats.Hopefully You just tasted the feeling of completing operations. I hope You will find more time to do and You will find it rewarding and fun.

 

Yesterday after an exhausting 8 hour of work I was like ok lets deal with weekly lvl 60 ops. I completed rav very easy but no luck with unassambled. But then I got into a Tos run and I got the mainhand plus I won a bonus relic because noone needed on it. And I was on to log out when I found that a guild was looking for 1t for tos+rav first boss HM. I joined and we killed Sparky first try and I got the token relic from Malaphar. This gave Me a huge boost to keep it up.

[FerkWork]

That's awesome for both of you.

 

I tanked Bulo HM for the first time tonight and boy it was fun but kind of hectic at first. We kept inching closer and after the 6th pull we got him I noticed we got him to 15% and shouted Burn Burn Burn! and We got him and it felt like the greatest feeling ever. Then we did Torque for a few pulls but didn't get far on him.

 

Best accomplishment for me was although I'm not that good at getting DPS numbers I did set a personal best of threat on my tank with 30 million lol. Probable not really an accomplishment but for me it was.

 

Now to work on my DPS and its numbers lol.

Edited March 7, 2015 by FerkWork

[QuadraticAmoeba]

I've seen many negative posts complaining about difficulty and claiming that "average" people are quitting over difficulty. This thread is not about that. Instead I would like to focus on the average people who stay and strive for progression. Who stay after every wipe. While threads dedicated to the newest content exist what about those who don't finish first or 10th (On my JC server one only first 10 kills count) but still go out there and try to down the content even if it takes far more time than those at the top or those who may have been absent from the game at the time.

 

<snip>

 

Thus, post below your most recent accomplishment by your raid team/guild that you are proud of. And it could be any OP, whether you beat DF first time or Coritanni on HM. Throw in Screenshots if you want. It's your progression.

 

Cheers and Raid on

 

Hi there, I'm on JC as well and a long time lurker (and first time poster). I am really enjoying the 3.0 expansion, because it gives me the chance to try out all the old NiM ops with my raid group and guild. I consider myself a "hard mode but not nightmare mode" raider, both for my personal skill level and the level of our group.

 

In the past few weeks, we have done:

 

- 4/5 NiM DF (this is on farm, ever since I learnt to tank Grob'Thok) - a big thank you to Kyrand/Torva Nex who wrote a very informative post on the strategy to use. Brontes is a question of perfect execution, and we need to work on it - we can get to the 6 finger phase and things fall apart there.

 

- 2/5 NiM DP - will work more on this, but for now, we are concentrating on other ops.

 

- 5/5 NiM TFB - including timed run - both my tanks are now "From Beyond". Special thanks to Saevurr/Republic Gentlemen for an awesome 1 hour timed run that was almost perfect.

 

- 6/7 NiM S&V - we are able to go up to Cartel Warlords repeatedly - Olok the Shadow is one hard fight due to the bugged Artillery droids, but it is doable. We are wiping to the chained manifestation for Styrak, clearly we need to understand that part of the fight better.

 

- 10/10 SM Rav and TOS, every week. We have 7 manned Rav and 1 tanked all of TOS except boss #2.

 

- 1/5 HM Rav and 1/5 HM TOS - I was a sub/guest in other teams in our guild who kindly let me sub in to get the achievements.

 

The biggest reason I continue to stay subbed is due to my guild and operations - and with 3.0, we are able to work on some of the older challenging content which is now within our reach.

 

Dragonslayer - hope I get you soon :-).

[FerkWork]

Awesome! If you got the deco from TFB NiM I might have to stop by your stronghold

[DarthZaul]

Cleared Rav and ToS SM but have only killed Lurker about 4 times and now we can't do it again. Done Malphar HM and gonna do Sparky if we can recruit some PDS.