Balance of tactical flashpoints

[GavinBail]

I have run it since 4.0 dropped, although but not in the last few weeks.

 

Has something changed on it? Or are people simply unfamiliar with the mechanics?

 

The earlier post seems to refer to the Colonel Daksh fight. Early on in the life of this game (before people could be overleveled for that particular flashpoint), it was always vitally important to duck behind the crates during his laser optic phase. I've had plenty of one-or-two-shots during that fight whenever someone would fudge the LoS.

 

Rescaling it to 65 seems to have brought back some of the earlier importance of that mechanic.

 

As a case in point, when I ran that particular flashpoint with some newbies a couple of months ago, 3/4 of the group promptly died the first time he had his laser optics out. A brief explanation of the mechanics in chat, then another go at it. That time one of the group members died, but the remaining three were able to finish the fight.

 

YMMV.

 

Yeah something has changed, he is hitting for 40K/hit and multiple hits per second OUTSIDE of the charged phase where you are supposed to hide. I've had several groups of experienced players (on new toons) give up due to dying less then 5 seconds into the fight. That isn't working as intended and is really driving many of the new players in my guild to never use GF or not try tacticals at all.

[MuskyBoy]

The two major problems I see with TFPs is the difference in dtps from one fp to another and the the Hp of bosses. I think Blood Hunt borders on broken given you conceivably have 4 lvl 20 dps doing it. The bleed effect from Jos ticks at 6.5 k per tick on a lvl 43 Vanguard (i know this because that was how I died at the start of the 3rd phase). This seems a little extreme especially when most lowbies are running aroung 55-57 k hp. As for the hp of bosses Jos and Valk and Shae Vizla both require over 3 million in damage, compare this to even some of the other SoR tacticals and it seems it was poorly rescaled at 4.0. While there is no enrager the longer a fight goes the more that can go wrong especially for low level players who run out of defensive really quickly. The way I see tacticals is that they should be roughly on the level of the old sm fp's. This just isn't the case.

[Laiov]

The Jos/Valk fight on Blood Hunt is overtuned at any level. Jos and Valk simply have too much HP. A large HP pool means a long fight. The longer you're in the fight, the greater the odds of eventually getting knocked off the platform while using the kolto stations. You lose DPS from one player and the HP problem is magnified: even longer fight, more knockoffs, more wipes. Devs should consider cutting their hit points by 1/3 or so.

 

Other stuff:

 

- Maelstrom Prison. Grand Moff Kilran can sometimes snipe you through walls/obstacles. Since this is a one shot kill, it can break the encounter.

 

- Depths of Manaan. Ortuno. You often lose one player to the lightning during this fight. At level 65 this doesn't guarantee a wipe, especially considering battle rez. However it is quite difficult to three man the encounter using low level toons that don't yet have all of their damage mitigation skills. I think that if the adds spawned every other phase, instead of every phase, this fight would be in a good place.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Laiov

[psandak]

I have run it since 4.0 dropped, although but not in the last few weeks.

 

Has something changed on it? Or are people simply unfamiliar with the mechanics?

 

The earlier post seems to refer to the Colonel Daksh fight. Early on in the life of this game (before people could be overleveled for that particular flashpoint), it was always vitally important to duck behind the crates during his laser optic phase. I've had plenty of one-or-two-shots during that fight whenever someone would fudge the LoS.

 

Rescaling it to 65 seems to have brought back some of the earlier importance of that mechanic.

 

As a case in point, when I ran that particular flashpoint with some newbies a couple of months ago, 3/4 of the group promptly died the first time he had his laser optics out. A brief explanation of the mechanics in chat, then another go at it. That time one of the group members died, but the remaining three were able to finish the fight.

 

YMMV.

 

While the Colonel can be difficult with a group that wants to dps instead of hide, it's KIlran that's pissing the most people off: he bugs out CONSTANTLY where you cannot damage him (there is a way to debug him but it does not always work so you have to go through many wipes just to debug him sometimes). And he shoots through stuff, he's targeting someone so they duck behind a pillar or a box and they get hit anyway. I have personally experienced this very recently. I could not see him for all the stuff between him and me (pillars and crates and yet I was taking damage anyway.

 

Blood hunt, it's the husband and wife boss the positioning of the kolto station vs the knockback range. As others have pointed out you have to pray to the RNG gods that you do not need a kolto tank heal when the KB happens; if you do not heal you are probably dead to damage, and if you go to use the KS and the KB happens you end up dead anyway.

[DenariusJay]

I hate blood hunt.

[Saelinne]

Yeah something has changed, he is hitting for 40K/hit and multiple hits per second OUTSIDE of the charged phase where you are supposed to hide. I've had several groups of experienced players (on new toons) give up due to dying less then 5 seconds into the fight. That isn't working as intended and is really driving many of the new players in my guild to never use GF or not try tacticals at all.

 

If he is really hitting for so much without some way to evade that, this is something that need to be fixed....unfortunately I don't have access to PC that can run swtor to make a republic char to check that fight:(

...btw for the lazer phase of that fight it is useful if someone taunt the boss - since he doesn't aoe or change targets at random that allows the rest to still dps with no fear (and half the dps classes have taunt).

 

While the Colonel can be difficult with a group that wants to dps instead of hide, it's KIlran that's pissing the most people off: he bugs out CONSTANTLY where you cannot damage him (there is a way to debug him but it does not always work so you have to go through many wipes just to debug him sometimes). And he shoots through stuff, he's targeting someone so they duck behind a pillar or a box and they get hit anyway. I have personally experienced this very recently. I could not see him for all the stuff between him and me (pillars and crates and yet I was taking damage anyway.

Does Kilran's snipe ignore DCDs and kill you in 1 hit?

I don't know...maybe you are getting hit because of internet lag (so the game think you are still visible) If you use some ability to move behind a pillar (force speed/roll/etc) does it work? If party is mainly dps chars maybe have 2 of them jump/force speed to him and dps him fast so he goes away? (since he moves way back if he takes x amount of dmg...I believe 50%hp)

Blood hunt, it's the husband and wife boss the positioning of the kolto station vs the knockback range. As others have pointed out you have to pray to the RNG gods that you do not need a kolto tank heal when the KB happens; if you do not heal you are probably dead to damage, and if you go to use the KS and the KB happens you end up dead anyway.

If you have a shadow/sage to set up a teleport by the kolto that will help..as you can teleport mid air:) Don't their pushes have a timers? Watch for it, then go and use the kolto station only after the push...or maybe use some DCD that makes you immune to it:) Remember that kolto stations place heal over time on your entire party so you might want to use it even if someone else is the ''tank''...although the push is random so that still is risky...

....remind the dps players that they (probably if not sage/sentinel) still have taunt so if the ''tank'' is dying....in fact that is good advice for not only Blood hunt FP...shame that so often dps forget that skill:(

[darkov]

The addition of Kolto tanks to fights does not make a flashpoint a tactical. They were designed for tank, healer and two dps, and really some of them still need them.

 

It is truly painful to run most of the tacticals as four dps, or with new players. None of them are balanced like KDY, they're a lazy hash of the original SM.

 

I still think HM is easier than Tactical for these flashpoints.

[dwiekopy]

No one from Bioware tested those tacticals. Fights take forever with low level characters. Personally I couldn`t finish any of those tacticals. My group is dying in seconds, bosses with 1 million hp and 15 level dps with 2 skills and crap gear....seriously? How can you realease such messed up content? How? only kuat is ok because it was done properly. But you can`t make everyone happy. Some people say those flashpoints are too easy. If you run them with guildies perhaps it is true. AAARRGH! Im so angry right now

[AlrikFassbauer]

No one from Bioware tested those tacticals. Fights take forever with low level characters.

 

Yes, I've seen lots of near-wiping with low-level characters.

That's why I came to believe that Tacticals were balanced for around level 60-65 only.

[Halinalle]

Specifically:

• Maelstrom 2nd boss: Puts out a lot of damage to the tank, more than can be healed. This was outside of his laser eye phase.
  
• Manaan 2nd boss: Needed to use Kolto stations in addition to burst healing the tank, and I still ran out of energy.
  
• KDY, droid boss: Wiped once, killed it on second try.
  

 

I agree on first and second although Maelstrom Prison second boss is easy if you know what to do (don't just zerg the boss as soon as possible). But how can you fail at KDY? That should be an achievement in the game because you have to try to fail. Okay, it's easy to fail in KDY if one or more group members are there only to troll.

 

Rather than making everything level 65 and expecting raw stats to compensate, they should have made tactical flashpoints scale overlevelled people down.

 

That's exactly how Solo Mode works. Do you have any idea how easy Solo Mode is for one (1) level 65 even without droid? FE bosses would die in few seconds if everyone is at level 65.

 

Flashpoint: Hammer Station

Mode: Tactical

Solo/Group: Solo

Class: Sentinel

Discipline: Combat

Companion: T7, rank 30, heals

Gear: 6x 204 Weaponmaster armorings, everything else 208/216 vendor crap, 204 relics, not fully augmented

Player skill level: Average

 

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Edited July 11, 2016 by Halinalle

[mathcorerus]

Halinalle

lol why would you place SM ops progression

Edited July 11, 2016 by mathcorerus

[VegasTheLost]

Halinalle

lol why would you place SM ops progression

 

Yeah that signo is epic

[Halinalle]

Halinalle

lol why would you place SM ops progression

 

It's very difficult to be part of group. Most groups are in evening (20:00-22:00). And people require achievements from first timers. Though today I witnessed something really strange: EV SM group ~1 hour after daily reset on Progenitor (low pop) and I had to off heal as Gunnery.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Halinalle

[psandak]

Does Kilran's snipe ignore DCDs and kill you in 1 hit?

I don't know...maybe you are getting hit because of internet lag (so the game think you are still visible) If you use some ability to move behind a pillar (force speed/roll/etc) does it work? If party is mainly dps chars maybe have 2 of them jump/force speed to him and dps him fast so he goes away? (since he moves way back if he takes x amount of dmg...I believe 50%hp)

 

As I said, I had a LOT of stuff between him and me (pillars and [taller than character height] crates ) and I was not even moving for a solid two seconds and still got hit Furthermore, being a level 34 sage at the time the only DCD I had was force armor and he blew through that very quickly. I was spamming heals (in a heal spec no less) as fast as I could, using all my force resources and could not keep up.

 

If you have a shadow/sage to set up a teleport by the kolto that will help..as you can teleport mid air:)

That assumes the group has a shadow....BIG assumption.

Don't their pushes have a timers? Watch for it, then go and use the kolto station only after the push...or maybe use some DCD that makes you immune to it:) Remember that kolto stations place heal over time on your entire party so you might want to use it even if someone else is the ''tank''...although the push is random so that still is risky...

so I have to have starparse and timers setup to do a TFP?

[lightSaberAddiCt]

When you get behind the pillar jump in place, it resets your position in game.you are getting hit because you more then likely got cover a little late in his cast, and it didnt update your position.

[BobFredJohn]

so I have to have starparse and timers setup to do a TFP?

 

I fail to see the connection between "press kolto after knockback" and parsing programs. Sounds like you are looking for a complaint.

 

I have used the wait for knockback then do kolto tactic before, it worked extremely well.

[psandak]

I fail to see the connection between "press kolto after knockback" and parsing programs. Sounds like you are looking for a complaint.

 

I have used the wait for knockback then do kolto tactic before, it worked extremely well.

 

He said I should have a timer running. starparse has a timer function

 

Also all too often I have needed healing at bad times and the choice was die to damage or die to knockback.

Edited July 11, 2016 by psandak

[lightSaberAddiCt]

He said I should have a timer running. starparse has a timer function

 

Also all too often I have needed healing at bad times and the choice was die to damage or die to knockback.

 

Before you head to kolto use your aggo debuff skill, then run to kolto. It saves me from being target of the KB 99% of time.

[KEVHOUSTTWO]

Mealstrom, Taral V, and Blood Hunt are broken. Period. Unless they fixed it recently, the Maelstrom bonus boss doesn't even have koltos, Taral's bonus boss deals HM level damage that is almost impossible to keep up without an actual healer, and the Jos and Valk encounter deals more damage and has deadlier knockbacks than the HM version. Some other flashpoints (notably red reaper) need to be re-evaluated due to the fact that low levels tend to lack CC abilities.

 

Everything else is player error. People don't fully understand the Ortuno fight, and recieve extra damage from his shocks due to standing in the water. There is a reason the "tank" generally kites him around rather than standing stationary. People don't drag the duneclaw in Meltdown to the glowing generator, causing a wipe from rampage and sandstorm damage. People die on the twin droids in False Emperor for not standing in the circle.

 

If you ask me, some of the vanilla fights aren't long enough, particularly the Officer Xander/EN4C one - the pacing of it is far too slow for their health values, and it would be a much more fun encounter if the droid had to be trapped multiple times. Maybe its ok for tactical, but the HM version definetly needs a buff. They also actually nerfed a few fights, such as the droid in red reaper, where they made it a tank and spank and moved all the mechanics to HM, which I refuse to do because it is still missing a bonus boss.

 

Regardless, while some flashpoints are actually unbalanced, most of them are fine, people just need to stop and think instead of assuming its ez mode and zerging everything.

[Halinalle]

Taral's bonus boss deals HM level damage that is almost impossible to keep up without an actual healer

 

Don't stand in circle. Or do you mean the droid? Circle thing applies in that fight too + pls use your interrupt, you have it for very good reason.

 

Some other flashpoints (notably red reaper) need to be re-evaluated due to the fact that low levels tend to lack CC abilities.

 

You don't need CC in Red Reaper. The biggest issues in Red Reaper are:

- players who don't focus one enemy at a time, everyone picks different target

- players who don't use interrupts in last boss fight, they keep hitting adds with their abilities and then complain how it's bugged.

 

CC is mostly useless anyway because there's always someone who breaks it.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Halinalle

[DawnAskham]

This is, I think the crux of the issue. Players don't like wiping, don't like difficult bits and especially don't like taking their time. Its an attitude of "this mission is supposed to be easy, so why should I bother learning my class".

 

They don't seem to realise the catch 22: the mission is easy once you know your class.

 

If I may also point out, hopefully without the backlash lightsaberaddict got, that I haven't had many issues with tfp's either. Its usually just simple little things like writing "does everybody know these boss mechanics?" before each boss pull or "<group member> you are the only person with a taunt, I know your dps but can you tank the bloke in mando raiders first boss."

 

Having said that I did recently have a mando raiders run with a group in which nobody had taunt and 2 of the group were brand new (not following kill order, breaking cc's, pulling at half health etc) and we cleared first boss mando easily, all I did was write "bloke will random aggro" (he wont, but he will aggro dump which will seem random) "so if hes on you move away from dogs." We pull and beat it with no issues.

 

If 4 dps go into a tfp and try and run as 4 separate people who happen to be in the same instance, they will fail. If they (I know its a cliché) work together its much easier.

 

Just my opinion, but tactical flashpoints should not pose much of a challenge, and certainly not of the 'wipe, determine what happened, make adjustments, try again, wipe' type challenge.

 

The game offers HM flashpoints, along with HM and some NiM operations for those looking for a real challenge.

 

Of course four random level 15 maras should not expect to just leap to their hearts content and successfully complete a tactical, but four random 15 maras working together should not be pulling their hair out trying to slog through to the finish while losing someone every pull.

 

And honestly, in most cases tactical flashpoints are fine - but some pulls / fights / bosses have excessive damage, or issues with scripts / mechanics / kolto placement, as well as bugs, that should have been addressed months ago.

 

Some simple tuning passes using their own metrics (identify bosses with outlier damage / TTK / deaths / wipes), fixing reported bugs, and possibly shifting the bolster curve so lower levels end up with more HP / raw stats / and passive mitigation would show they care to deliver fun, balanced, and reasonably challenging group content.

Edited July 19, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Khevar]

... and possibly shifting the bolster curve so lower levels end up with more HP / raw stats / and passive mitigation would show they care to deliver fun, balanced, and reasonably challenging group content.

I believe this may actually go a long way towards making the mismatched character levels in a tactical flashpoint work.

 

The bolster appears to be a straight "boost stat to X" regardless of your level. But a really low-level character has very few active abilities, or passive abilities that boost damage, healing, and mitigation. Not too long ago, I leveled a bounty hunter almost exclusively through tactical flashpoints. I kept a parser open (mostly out of curiosity).

 

A low levels I was peaking at ~1500 dps. When I started unlocking abilities that helped with heat management, this went up to ~2500 dps. When I unlocked barrage it went up to ~3000 dps. Etc.

 

I imagine it's a similar thing for healers and tanks. A bolster that compensated for the lack of abilities in lower-level characters would help, I think.

[MoonDroid]

I really miss the old fashioned, level and role dependent versions of the FPs. Why couldn't they have kept that and added the tactical versions as an option? I honestly find HMs easier and less frustrating. Plus the level cap makes me never want to queue for a FP ever again. Level 15 players really have no place playing with level 60s, and I say this having experienced it from both roles. I really do hope they do decide to change this in the future.

[AndoEyrune]

Don't stand in circle. Or do you mean the droid? Circle thing applies in that fight too + pls use your interrupt, you have it for very good reason.

 

The bonus boss in Taral V is the lord dude who 1-2 shots low level players with his force lightning. If you dont have a level 40+ group, preferably with a healer, that boss is virtually impossible, as there aren't enough kolto stations to survive his attacks.

[Petnil]

Teral V bonus boss isn't too bad, just run out asap when he pulls you in. The aoe damage he does is deadly so usually i'll only try one time, maybe two if we allmost had him the first try.

 

It's the bonus boss in Foundry ? that's tough. (get theese FP's mixed up) That beast does a huge stomp that decimates peoples life and most people will be dead after the second stomp. Ofc. it doesn't help that this boss have no koltostations. I dont know if there's a way to avoid that damage, maybe if you jump when he stomps so you're in the air when he lands, but i dont think so. Basicly with 4 dps it's a matter of nuking hard and saying a prayer.