Do something with SM Underlurker already, TOS has been wasting for nearly 4 months

[TUXs]

see thats the thing...the "casuals" already have a story mode. Its the weekly and the solo mode at the end of Yavin.

 

The story ends in the same result, the only difference is that you are not required to complete the operations to know how the story continues...result is the same, just a different path to getting there.

 

IF all you want is story, finish the weekly, if you want to gear for HM operations, run SM operations.

Casual doesn't mean "solo".

 

Getting more people doing more things in game, creates a far better game.

 

I don't care about "story", I want a stronger player base - that requires more things for casual players to do. Content players can complete to gear up. Content players WANT to return to...not content that turns them off to Operations.

[Tachenko_Yuri]

 

I don't want NO boss mechanics, I just want them to be boss mechanics that most of the player base can complete...the very casual included.

 

Killing a bunch of adds that stands still.

 

Knowing left from right at cross mechanic.

 

Avoiding the aoe stuff from " collapse "

 

Basics. Don't know how can that be nerfed even more.

[DOHboy]

Casual doesn't mean "solo".

 

Getting more people doing more things in game, creates a far better game.

 

I don't care about "story", I want a stronger player base - that requires more things for casual players to do. Content players can complete to gear up. Content players WANT to return to...not content that turns them off to Operations.

 

but did you say this game is about the story...if you want the story you can have the story.

 

If you want the difficulty of operations run operations. Is it hard sure..is it impossible no. are people who pug willing to put up with it...no.

 

Did I actually feel some accomplishment finally getting passed him after a few hours yes. thats the point. if i wanted a face roll I'd go 6 man EV nightmare and be done.

 

The encounter is do able at level and with some patience. That particular boss is the pug wiper, as most of the "puzzle" bosses are. not much different than 2nd boss of DF if you are not coordinated and/or understand what to do, it will be difficult. Nobody pugging wants to sit there and wipe for 3 hours. does that mean it needs to be nerfed, no. Just means pugs need to step up and learn to play.

[TUXs]

Killing a bunch of adds that stands still.

 

Knowing left from right at cross mechanic.

 

Avoiding the aoe stuff from " collapse "

 

Basics. Don't know how can that be nerfed even more.

What are you saying? That everyone who fails to beat this boss is just a bad player and shouldn't be allowed to do Ops?

 

The DPS requirement is far too high. The damage output is as well.

[TUXs]

but did you say this game is about the story...if you want the story you can have the story.

 

If you want the difficulty of operations run operations. Is it hard sure..is it impossible no. are people who pug willing to put up with it...no.

 

Did I actually feel some accomplishment finally getting passed him after a few hours yes. thats the point. if i wanted a face roll I'd go 6 man EV nightmare and be done.

 

The encounter is do able at level and with some patience. That particular boss is the pug wiper, as most of the "puzzle" bosses are. not much different than 2nd boss of DF if you are not coordinated and/or understand what to do, it will be difficult. Nobody pugging wants to sit there and wipe for 3 hours. does that mean it needs to be nerfed, no. Just means pugs need to step up and learn to play.

No...I said SWTOR is a story driven game. Plenty of people claim that daily on these forums. Personally, I find the story a bit goofy.

 

And no, PuGs don't need to "step up" and l2p...they simply quit the game and move on to other MMOs. Bioware needs to figure out what they can do to keep those players coming back here. Having only 2 end game Ops, one of which some players find too difficult to beat, isn't good for player retention.

[Icestar]

Lets hope we see something in the upcomming patches, there are alot of player feedback regarding TOS.

[dbears]

I feel like it's the age old scenario of "it's in the game so I should be able to do it."

 

Before anyone loses themselves about that comment, I totally agree that the adds health should be reduced. The adds on HM only have like 8k or 9k more than SM iirc..

 

With less health, they'll die quicker. If they die quicker, there's less damage going out. Less damage going out means less healing required which would solve a lot of problems PUGs experience.

 

I used to clear it twice a week with ease with the two raid groups I'm in. Since moving on to nothing but HM progression, I only ever take my alts (usually with PUGs) in there now. The thing I don't understand is..

 

Why can DPS do great damage in Sword Squadron fight before the walkers, but do so poorly in Underlurker. People that can do 3.2k+ on Sword Squadron drop down to 2.4k - 2.6k. I've even seen people parse UNDER 2.0k (yes, as a DPS) on Underlurker.

 

I mean.. sure I'll toot my own horn here and say I consistently do 4.0k on my AP PT, 3.5k on my Vengeance Jugg, and even over 3.0k on my poorly geared Arsenal Merc on the Underlurker. I've just never understood why some people struggle on that fight.

 

I do also understand it's STORYMODE.. It's supposed to be kind of facerolly. But as some other people have pointed out and to get back to my opening sentence, Operations ARE endgame content. Storymode or not, it's supposed to pose a challenge.

 

What I personally think Bioware needs to do..

 

Make the Groupfinder actually work somehow.

Fix the FPS issues people have in the 16m modes so they can actually be done.

Add a whole new tier of 186 set bonus gear for the Groupfinder.

Make the Operations in the Groupfinder actually facerolly for the really casual players so they can experience it.

 

Those changes would make a nice stepping stone to get in to the actual Operations.

[g_land]

Ran a pug ravagers about a month back with three dps I had never seen before, Sparky took insanely long and was probably only killed because the healers also threw in some dps. During the fight I put each one on focus target and watched how they used their procs, two of them used the procs occasionally while one always allowed them to fall off their bars (as in the timer ran out). At the end of the fight I politely said that I would have to remove that player and find another dps because his/her dps was not going to get us through the ops and suggested that they look at a guide on dulfy. Found another pug dps and we cleared it.

 

My point is, none of these fights require you to put out more than 75-80% of your class's dps potential at a gear rating of 186. It is literally asking you to be average in order to complete these fights. No requirement to know the class perfectly, all you have to do is know in general that this ability goes after this one and to use those abilities that have big glowing squares around them... if you can't accomplish that... I really don't know what to tell you but you probably have to be carried and at this point most people in pugs are just not going to be at the gear level where that is possible.

Edited March 26, 2015 by g_land

[Ruskaeth]

I mean.. sure I'll toot my own horn here and say I consistently do 4.0k on my AP PT, 3.5k on my Vengeance Jugg, and even over 3.0k on my poorly geared Arsenal Merc on the Underlurker. I've just never understood why some people struggle on that fight.

Let me see that horn of yours! If you are wearing even semi-optimized 192 gear, 4k is underperforming with AP PT.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[standtallwalkfre]

Personally I am on the fence here.

 

My regular group since 3.0 landed has had 4 ppl leave for various reasons we run on the Pub side 1 went Imp, 2 had real world commitments and 1 seems to have quit ToR. before 3.0 we were 9/10 DF DP HM Bestia(think that is how you spell it was our pain in the A**), Let's all remember how hard it was convincing some ppl that they NEEDED to target the corrupter and interrupt the cast when DF DP first came out.

 

There was a point about 2 1/2 months back when we had 7 original and 1 new(good just needed the opps practice) and Underlurcker was still overturned or broken to where he is now we got him to about 20% and it was our end time so we all felt confident that next time . Then the couple said things came up not able to focus the time for the run, hey life happens we all get that.

 

But 2 good DPS , ouch much at that point getting some fill ins for Rav first 2 bosses of TOS not that hard, then the 3rd DPS left none of his known toon name have logged in for 26 days at last looked. we were floundering there for a bit, now we seem to have a regular group and last week we were just that comming together run and filling Rav pieces for those that need some.

 

Ok thanks for getting this far, my opinion of Underlurcker is as a healer the damage out put might be, MIGHT BE a little high 5-10% at most, the real issue is the health of the adds is a bit to high that is the main hindrance. Can't remember off hand it is what 110k each if the brought that down to about 90 - 95k or shaved off about 10 - 15k from what ever the number really is for the adds health, that would allow the pug groups groups that can do the mechanic of the cross to have a chance.

Edited March 26, 2015 by standtallwalkfre

[DOHboy]

Personally I am on the fence here.

 

My regular group since 3.0 landed has had 4 ppl leave for various reasons we run on the Pub side 1 went Imp, 2 had real world commitments and 1 seems to have quit ToR. before 3.0 we were 9/10 DF DP HM Bestia(think that is how you spell it was our pain in the A**), Let's all remember how hard it was convincing some ppl that they NEEDED to target the corrupter and interrupt the cast when DF DP first came out.

 

There was a point about 2 1/2 months back when we had 7 original and 1 new(good just needed the opps practice) and Underlurcker was still overturned or broken to where he is now we got him to about 20% and it was our end time so we all felt confident that next time . Then the couple said things came up not able to focus the time for the run, hey life happens we all get that.

 

But 2 good DPS , ouch much at that point getting some fill ins for Rav first 2 bosses of TOS not that hard, then the 3rd DPS left none of his known toon name have logged in for 26 days at last looked. we were floundering there for a bit, now we seem to have a regular group and last week we were just that comming together run and filling Rav pieces for those that need some.

 

Ok thanks for getting this far, my opinion of Underlurcker is as a healer the damage out put might be, MIGHT BE a little high 5-10% at most, the real issue is the health of the adds is a bit to high that is the main hindrance. Can't remember off hand it is what 110k each if the brought that down to about 90 - 95k or shaved off about 10 - 15k from what ever the number really is for the adds health, that would allow the pug groups groups that can do the mechanic of the cross to have a chance.

 

 

currently it is both a DPS check AND a healer Check.. making it one or the other would be fine. I don't think BOTH need to be nerfed.

 

Healing 16 man ops is hard enough, healing 8 man Underlerker is hard enough. I can't imagine trying to heal 16 man Underelerker

 

I would be fine making 16 man group finder "easier" (tweek the damage out put, or tweek the dps check, but not both) keep the 8 man progressions the same.

[bdatt]

Reducing add health seems reasonable too. When Bioware has SM boss health at 2/3 the value of HM health (with same enrage timer), it would seem logical that certain adds that have to be killed within a fixed timeframe would also have 2/3 health.

[Declan_Vee]

currently it is both a DPS check AND a healer Check.. making it one or the other would be fine. I don't think BOTH need to be nerfed.

 

The Heal-check really only comes into play IF the dps are useless. Not as a general rule.

[BrittneyNB]

Did my weekly ToS run last night, with the set group that has been easily downing him well before enrage. I am a healer and I noticed we were taking a ton more damage than usual, so I started paying more attention to adds and timers. Turns out the adds were coming about 5 seconds faster each time, which added up. We were barely getting any time to dps the boss. On top of that, the cross was doing crazy damage, even when it was green. After 6 attempts we decided to leave instance and reset the phase. The adds were still coming about 2 seconds earlier each time but with some pretty good healing (we were easily breaking 8k total ehps) we managed to barely get it done. Barely as in 3/8 people were alive and we were able to use our raid buffs a second time at the end The point being that sometimes things are just out of sync or mechanics are broken to the point that even knowing the mechanics doesn't help much. I could not imagine running into this scenario with a PUG, it would get discouraging very fast.

 

If they are going to 'nerf' Underlurker, they should reduce the health of the adds. That would solve all complaints not related to the cross itself. Adds die faster = more dps on boss (reducing stress of dps check) + less raidwide damage (reducing stress of ehps check). They should not get rid of mechanics because they are fine as is, imo of course

[Icestar]

If they are going to 'nerf' Underlurker

 

Some call it a nerf, I call it more enjoyable content for all players

[GopherLuV]

Did my weekly ToS run last night, with the set group that has been easily downing him well before enrage. I am a healer and I noticed we were taking a ton more damage than usual, so I started paying more attention to adds and timers. Turns out the adds were coming about 5 seconds faster each time, which added up. We were barely getting any time to dps the boss. On top of that, the cross was doing crazy damage, even when it was green. After 6 attempts we decided to leave instance and reset the phase. The adds were still coming about 2 seconds earlier each time but with some pretty good healing (we were easily breaking 8k total ehps) we managed to barely get it done.

 

Could you prove this? Because my HM geared (i'm 2 mods and 2 implants short of full 198 minus a few set pieces..) mando can't hit anywhere NEAR 8k effective... i've hit like 4.5-4.7 on a good pull in some bosses (bulo/sword squad HM..) I've seen scounds put out 7-8k HPS (NOT effective, but.. HPS and only seen this on malaphar... never anywhere else)

 

rereading that I may have misunderstood.. if thats combined.. ok.. ignore that.. when I first read it I was thinking you were saying YOU were hitting that..

Edited March 26, 2015 by GopherLuV

[BrittneyNB]

Could you prove this? Because my HM geared (i'm 2 mods and 2 implants short of full 198 minus a few set pieces..) mando can't hit anywhere NEAR 8k effective... i've hit like 4.5-4.7 on a good pull in some bosses (bulo/sword squad HM..) I've seen scounds put out 7-8k HPS (NOT effective, but.. HPS and only seen this on malaphar... never anywhere else)

 

rereading that I may have misunderstood.. if thats combined.. ok.. ignore that.. when I first read it I was thinking you were saying YOU were hitting that..

 

Nope it was combined. I was hitting 4.2k-4.5k ehps and 4.5k-4.8k hps, my healing partner around 3.8k-4.1k through our attempts. I'm a commando and he is a scoundrel.

[GopherLuV]

Ok.. that makes more sense... lol just read it wrong there.. yea with heavy mDPS or bad DPS who don't hide from rage storm i've seen some 4.5k+ in there..

[Ruskaeth]

It can be a healing check I suppose. Just finished healing a pug with a guildie and we had 10k EHP from two healers combined on Lurker. And, before anyone jumps to conclusion, we only refreshed our kolto probes through the fight (except on enrage we had to move away from that). I just think that people don't know how to use their defensive cds at all. :S

[RandyL]

Did my weekly ToS run last night, with the set group that has been easily downing him well before enrage. I am a healer and I noticed we were taking a ton more damage than usual, so I started paying more attention to adds and timers.

 

I've seen some bizarre things in FPs and OPs with relation to spawning and timers as well. If the timers or dmg output are varying though this would explain why some people think this fight is "not that hard" while others encounter a wipefest with an appropriately geared and experienced group. AND it wouldn't be the first time HM or NiM mechanics or dmg somehow bled over to SM even if only occasionally. How would a group that's only encountered SM know the fight was not working as intended?

 

I don't know a lot about programming so I'm not going to speculate, but how timers, dmg output and mechanics can change in a scripted fight is quite puzzling to me. While BW works on making this fight more consistent they should be nerfing the dmg output of the adds and increasing the enrage timer a bit. My OPS group isn't even encountering the enrage timer, we're getting destroyed by adds and the cross mechanic. You really can't lose anyone. Once you lose one person in an 8m it's pretty much over.

Edited March 26, 2015 by RandyL

[Papazmurf]

After failing this miserably for over a month I finally took it out on my healer and tank in two consecutive days with different groups. There's no heal check here, it's a DPS check. DPS down the adds, you don't worry about the extra damage and heals can do their job without too much effort.

 

If you've got DPS to take out the adds consistently before the cross you should be good. That's my metric and I don't parse.

[Ruskaeth]

There's no heal check here, it's a DPS check. DPS down the adds, you don't worry about the extra damage and heals can do their job without too much effort.

Declaring it's only a DPS check is one of those times when someone has not thought it through. It can be both, healers and dpses can both compensate on their own way. It's just that if other is not great, it demands more from the other. I have seen pugs where they might have killed it but could not keep up with the healing. I've seen groups where it's solo healed. Granted that the enrage could tolerate one more pack of ads to make it easier for larger part of the community.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[QuadraticAmoeba]

Another big point which has not really been mentioned in this thread is the Cross Mechanic on people with older machines that barely go above 10-15 FPS due to various effects on that fight or with ping higher than 300. I play on the Progenitor and we have people from as far as India playing in my guild and the problem is, the cross is still very Inconsistent.

 

I'm sure you have all seen the screenshots posted many times by other people on the Cross mechanic where on most peoples screens, everyone is in the Correct position but on a person on a slow computer or bad ping, hes in the Wrong position (but on his computer hes in the place where hes supposed to be). So what happens? you get both a GREEN and a RED cross, aka you take damage, even though you all did the mechanic perfectly.

 

Other than cheesing with powertechs, there is no way to avoid this situation, other than saying those with slow computers/low FPS or those with higher than 200 ping should not be allowed to do the ops as they punish the rest of the raid. I don't understand how Bioware can code the cross mechanic so that it appears differently on different peoples computers and causing wipes.

 

I get a lot of frustrated people, both guildies and Pugs who cause the Cross to fail through no fault of their own. I even had a few screenshot themselves as correctly in the cross lane but Everyone in the raid still take damage months ago after Bioware said they 'fixed' the cross mechanic to be more 'consistant'. Been the same since.

 

Not saying the game engine is perfect or bug-free - but there are ways to handle high latency. I run with 350 ms base ping, and I have no problems with green crosses. Get to your spot early, stand near the boss and JUMP - this combination ensures that the "error" between the client and the server is minimal and that the server has the latest update. Use your utilities if you need them (spec into enure / force speed / hold the line, etc.). I don't have it handy, but there is a post by KeyBoardNinja which explains how to minimize the problem of bad connections / client-server desync.

 

I mostly play melee classes as tank or DPS and have had no trouble with ping by following this rule - react fast and jump to update position (I have cleared all SM ops, all the 50/55 HMs and some of the 50/55 NiM, and none of them are impossible with high ping). I hope this may help someone with high ping who has trouble with moving in time (Draxus Anti-gravity field, etc.)

[dscount]

Problem is that Bioware has scaled 16 man so piss poorly in the last few operations released it's almost a waste of time to try and "PUG" the 16m GF unless you have a premade Guild Group just for comm's.

[QuadraticAmoeba]

It can be a healing check I suppose. Just finished healing a pug with a guildie and we had 10k EHP from two healers combined on Lurker. And, before anyone jumps to conclusion, we only refreshed our kolto probes through the fight (except on enrage we had to move away from that). I just think that people don't know how to use their defensive cds at all. :S

 

This is a very good point about defensive cooldowns. A lot of PUG DPS do not know that they have cooldowns and do not use them appropriately. Use your cooldowns liberally, esp. as a melee dps and you will stay alive longer and be able to put out more DPS to beat enrages. I have cleared Underluker as a shadow, jugg and vanguard DPS and I use my cooldowns on cooldown. I also ask for a guard, if needed, to help with damage mitigation. Also, one can use utilities to help the whole raid - Ballistic Shield, Sonic Rebounder, Threatening Scream damage absorb bubble, Static Barrier on someone who is low on health, etc.

 

In my view, DPSing is not just about beating stuff up - it's also about staying alive long enough to kill bosses. The healers in our (small) guild are amazing, but everytime they put out 4-5k eHPS, it means that our tanks and DPS were not doing their jobs correctly. Ultimately, operations are a test of group co-ordination and skill, and everything that you can do to help the others in your group matters.