The cancer that is Hard Mode Flashpoints.

[merovejec]

First off, my point in this thread has been PvP, not FPs... .

 

I just swap the enhancements for PVE or PVP, thats all, job done.

[Halinalle]

Or are you some kind of sadist that wants to grind out 2 sets of 242 gear?

 

Then don't... Nobody is forcing you to do it.

Since you don't do operations you don't even need accuracy. By default you have 101% accuracy. Of course you can still miss in flashpoints but you probably don't do those either so accuracy is useless to you.

 

So, why exactly do you need two sets of gear?

[Psychopyro]

I just swap the enhancements for PVE or PVP, thats all, job done.

 

You realize the cost to rip enhancements at 242 is friggin ridiculous right?

 

Then don't... Nobody is forcing you to do it.

Since you don't do operations you don't even need accuracy. By default you have 101% accuracy. Of course you can still miss in flashpoints but you probably don't do those either so accuracy is useless to you.

 

So, why exactly do you need two sets of gear?

 

And where did I say I don't do ops? Lemme know when you find that so I can fix it.....

[Halinalle]

You realize the cost to rip enhancements at 242 is friggin ridiculous right?.

 

Actually it's free if you know what you're doing.

 

In 242 optimal seems to be:

1 enhancement (this gearing term includes earpiece and implants btw)

3 augments

Accuracy stim

 

What you can do is have accuracy augments in implants and earpiece, have accuracy in earpiece or one of the implants. Use accuracy stim.

 

Though you could still run into problems with augments, crit or alacrity. What I've checked few pvp guides stat priorities are very different from pve (full crit with very little alacrity for example). So you really need that second gear set anyway.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Halinalle

[Kiesu]

Hell I run HM fps on underleveled characters in empty XP gear. It's not really an issue of gear, its about your situational awareness and cooldowns as well as rotation. Gear is just a carry factor on midtier content. When you get into content that doesnt have a bolster- thats when you start complaining about gear.

 

What is the cancer of FPs though, is the bugged mechanics on several bosses. Hell in False Emperor the spaceship turret guy is a luck game whether the console actually clearances the dots anymore or not.

[McHondy]

Hell I run HM fps on underleveled characters in empty XP gear. It's not really an issue of gear, its about your situational awareness and cooldowns as well as rotation. Gear is just a carry factor on midtier content. When you get into content that doesnt have a bolster- thats when you start complaining about gear.

 

What is the cancer of FPs though, is the bugged mechanics on several bosses. Hell in False Emperor the spaceship turret guy is a luck game whether the console actually clearances the dots anymore or not.

 

So you are getting carried and are leaching of others... Even with bolster gear counts, big difference on 4k dps and 8k... And try that as healer or tank Tanks in dps gear and/or discipline is my favorites.

[Kiesu]

So you are getting carried and are leaching of others... Even with bolster gear counts, big difference on 4k dps and 8k... And try that as healer or tank Tanks in dps gear and/or discipline is my favorites.

I main healers and dps, lvled 5 oper and merc healers alone like that. I know what i am talking about ty very much

[Rabenschwinge]

Hell I run HM fps on underleveled characters in empty XP gear. It's not really an issue of gear, its about your situational awareness and cooldowns as well as rotation. Gear is just a carry factor on midtier content. When you get into content that doesnt have a bolster- thats when you start complaining about gear.

 

What is the cancer of FPs though, is the bugged mechanics on several bosses. Hell in False Emperor the spaceship turret guy is a luck game whether the console actually clearances the dots anymore or not.

 

Not it isn't. If you cannot pull your weight, you cannot deal the baseline damage it takes to kill the boss before it enrages, you cannot tank the baseline damage, lot alone hold aggro vs. a damage dealer who can pull his weight, or you cannot heal the baseline damage. You cannot play better than perfect, dodge every single area effect, pick the best target at any time and always select the best ability without interruption. If you're undergeared, it won't be enough. If you succeeded in HM flashpoints before, that is because people who know what they were doing carried you through.

 

Or you have been doing the simplest ones. Mandalorian Raiders, Hammer Station, Esseles, Athiss... well those do not require gear. Blood Hunt or Lost Island are different beasts entirely, however.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Rabenschwinge

[Kiesu]

Not it isn't. If you cannot pull your weight, you cannot deal the baseline damage it takes to kill the boss before it enrages, you cannot tank the baseline damage, lot alone hold aggro vs. a damage dealer who can pull his weight, or you cannot heal the baseline damage. If you succeeded in HM flashpoints before, that is because people who know what they were doing carried you through.

 

Or you have been doing the simplest ones. Mandalorian Raider, Hammer Station, Esseles... well those do not require gear. Blood Hunt or Lost Island are different beasts entirely, however.

 

Blood Hunt for anyone under lv is brutal. You suggesting that as the first just makes you look like an over-exaggerating dummy plus take a look at the link bellow me.

Really, grab a tank and dps gear. All you need is a shield and the bolster will do the rest. It really isnt that hard if you know your roll. Knowing what can be interrupted, cleansed and ccd helps too, protip

If you dont believe me hook me up on TRE I'll do some lowbie HMs with u, I still got unlvled left.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Kiesu

[Torvai]

So you are getting carried and are leaching of others... Even with bolster gear counts, big difference on 4k dps and 8k... And try that as healer or tank Tanks in dps gear and/or discipline is my favorites.

 

Or you have been doing the simplest ones. Mandalorian Raider, Hammer Station, Esseles... well those do not require gear. Blood Hunt or Lost Island are different beasts entirely, however.

 

[krfsm]

Only 5k? You don't even have to do rotation correctly because you can easily do 2,4k with basic attack. Two dds doing 2,4k means 4,8k. Now add tank dps and damage healer deals. Easy.

 

I meant 5k DPS per player, and that was just an estimate since I don't have actual numbers and can't be bothered to calculate it myself.

I don't think every player is able to hit 2.4k DPS; in your parse you had a high APM (way too many players wait too long between each ability) and probably good gear.

 

Kyramla needs about 11.5k if you count boss only, and 15.5k if you include adds. If you get a lot of free aoe damage, it's about 5k dps per dps player and then some on the tank.

 

Bolster works fine. The issue isn't with that.

 

It works fine for bolstering undergeared 70s. It technically works "fine" for lowers, too - they get about 220 ilevel stats. However, bolster doesn't compensate for missing skills - at 50 many disciplines are missing vital components. (Arsenal merc gets blazing bolts at 58 and barrage at 60. Funny rotation you can have before that. )

 

You mentioned the Assault on Tython. That last boss can be tricky for new players but the fact that your team, with the 69 in it, made it past the first boss, which is far harder, shows that player could have done it and gearing wasn't the issue. Knowing the mechanics was.

 

The first boss might be harder overall, but the last boss is specifically harder on the healer. A level 69 healer shouldn't have a problem neither gear wise (you can be in all 228s if you like at 68) or abilities wise. A lower level healer might have quite some problems:

 

A sorc at 50 doesn't have roaming mend, the proc for free, instant dark heal, and not enough skill points to be able to innervate on the move. To top it of they don't get the bonus force from consuming darkness nor the new sustaining darkness heal on bubbles. Yay!

 

The other healers aren't that bad, but they sure have less healing power than a level 70.

 

In saying that the bolster is screwy as ****. I don't get why they allowed under levelled people to access the content but didn't make the bolster give them the minimal stats required to actually do the content.

 

Fix bolster, problem solved and I don't mean fix it so people are over geared either - bare minimum bolster.

 

Yeah, a reasonable fix would be to bolster lower levels to stats above 220 ilevel, maybe 10% extra for a level 50, and then linearly down to 220 ilevel at 70. That should be good enough for most cases.

 

 

You still need 105% accuracy to never miss in pvp. 105% is also more than enough in pve if you never do ops. 110% accuracy is only required in operations.

 

You're still gimping yourself somewhat if you don't have 110% accuracy, as all FP bosses have 10% resistance. But that's not more than a few percent dps wise so it's not a huge deal. (A naked level 50 gets about 5% accuracy from bolster + 1% from comp).

[Tharandil]

How about as a requirement: You would have to pass Veteran mode (know the basic mechanics) and maybe a gear rating of 230 (being an experienced player). What is key for HM Flashpoints is to KNOW YOUR ROTATIONS!!!!

Furthermore have decent DPS, Heals and a Tank, that know how to keep aggro.

 

Let me know what you think?

[HelinCarnate]

 

Exactly. Accuracy is not the issue. The issue is that some fights were created for specific levels and bolster does not grant those abilities. Blood hunt was created based on having all your abilities. You just don't have all the tools needed at level 50 being bolstered up to 70 to take out the first boss. Unless your team is very coordinated and they are all familiar with the mechanics of the fight (much like the team in the vid) you will not do very well on this boss if you have under leveled members on the team as dps even if they have enough accuracy.

Edited January 17, 2017 by HelinCarnate

[McHondy]

 

And that's the difference of full lvl with all abilities and a coordinated team, try that with 4 pugs please

 

Comparing a Guild/Friend team on voicecom with pugs, LOL.

 

And it's not about what can be done, it's about what you can expect to bring to the fight without needing to be carried.

[Torvai]

And it's not about what can be done, it's about what you can expect to bring to the fight without needing to be carried.

 

Of course it is. The content is fine. It's the players that are a problem. If you don't want to get grouped with idiots, don't queue random, simple as that.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Torvai

[Monoth]

The easiest solution for veteran players is to join a guild with other veteran players so you can join the flashpoint as a group of 4 and then you don't have to worry about new players not knowing their rotations or not having the proper gear. The fact is if your new an don't know your rotations or have bad gear you shouldn't be doing hard mode to begin with. Any player that is semi-intelligent will figure that out after a few Hard Mode runs and go back to doing the easier ones until they get the hang of it.

 

But if you don't have patience to work with new players then do as I suggested and find a guild with fellow veteran players so you don't have to play with random players.

[Kiesu]

Kyramla needs about 11.5k if you count boss only, and 15.5k if you include adds. If you get a lot of free aoe damage, it's about 5k dps per dps player and then some on the tank.

Dont forget- healers can dps too. And should. There is not a single fight in the game where you need to be doing healing only 100% of the combat time. ALWAYS dot and throw dps when no healing is vital and your energy levels are on par. If you never dps/interrupt/cc as a healer you need to rethink about the level of contribution you're giving to your team, for its very little.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Kiesu

[tharbison]

I play FP's almost exclusively. All roles. All pugs. My experience has been positive, 4/5 groups are able to clear the content and/or are willing to take guidance from more experienced players. It's the 1/5 that give FPs a bad rap imo.

 

I don't think changing stats or having gear/skill checks, or raising the min level will fix anything. Some people just don't care enough to know their class & rotation. They are super casuals who play just for fun. They get by fine in pve, but HM group content exposes their weaknesses. And usually they don't even know it, it takes a veteran player to recognize it.

 

These types of folks probably aren't going to change, and that's fine. Everyone plays their own way. But please don't make the content any easier for people who like the challenge. HM FP's are HM for a reason.

[Brucezar]

My suggestion is to nerf enrage timers on non-bonus bosses.

 

Great Idea! And way less mechanics. in post Make

b HMFPs.

[_Shaddai_]

Dont forget- healers can dps too. And should. There is not a single fight in the game where you need to be doing healing only 100% of the combat time. ALWAYS dot and throw dps when no healing is vital and your energy levels are on par. If you never dps/interrupt/cc as a healer you need to rethink about the level of contribution you're giving to your team, for its very little.

 

If you're trying to solo heal, Rishi Bonus Boss would like to have a word with you.

[teclado]

No problem there whatsoever. Why do you think defense would be worthless?

Accuracy of 100% means you will hit a target with no defense 100%. Regardless of your accuracy stat. And that's the reason you "need" 110% for Ops, because the bosses there have 10% defense.

But bosses have no additional accuracy, so nothing would change for tanks. Same goes for PvP. The simple solution would be to reduce bosses defense by 10%, giving each player 100% acc and be done with it. Nothing else would change to the status quo. You would still miss 5% against players, 10% against inqui/consulars and whatever defense tanks have.

Well, and a healers interrupt won't miss anymore, looking at you draxxus

Ok. So you are thinking that they wouldn't remove the functionality of acc / defense entirely (as I understood OP to be suggesting), but rather set everybody to 100% (well I guess 101% with companion bonus), remove the def chance from ops bosses, and remove all accuracy enhancements / augments from the game? That could work.

[Shwarzchild]

The real issue with hard mode flashpoints is that they shouldn't be considered under level cap content. They should be entry level for end game. Why bioware considers it's end game starting point level 50 is confusing to me.

[krfsm]

If you're trying to solo heal, Rishi Bonus Boss would like to have a word with you.

 

(Though in all fairness, healing scales somewhat with number of people in that fight.)

[Halinalle]

So, level 50 can't dps?

 

Flashpoint: Legacy of the Rakata

Mode: Veteran (yeah, laugh all you want)

Class: Assassin

Discipline: Hatred

Level: 50-51

Gear: lvl48 with relics, implants and earpiece at random levels below 50

Accuracy: 106.something (non-bolstered), 107,97 (bolstered)

 

Savage War Beast and War Chief Rehkta: 4490 (with a lot of knockbacks)

http://i.imgur.com/yEwdV4g.png

 

Commander Rand: 6001

http://i.imgur.com/6u7uRkb.png

 

Darth Arkous and Colonel Darok: 3808 (even with death and stealth rez)

http://i.imgur.com/PBaPn9s.png

 

And I wasn't even trying...

Edited January 17, 2017 by Halinalle

[_Shaddai_]

(Though in all fairness, healing scales somewhat with number of people in that fight.)

 

Solo with a companion =/= 4 players. (All affected with the dot) - As well as needing help cleansing the focused dps/tank if they cannot consistently cleanse themselves.

 

Also 2 players instead of 4 = 2 pools instead of 3. He also has the timing down pretty considerably. It's likely he spent a lot of time on that before posting that link.