Heroic+2 Star Fortresses as a healer

[bluehufsa]

Since you all call me names like "inept" and handicapped" for not being able to solo Heroic +2 as a healer, please post a tutorial? Prove that you can do it as a med tech healer without any help, only with your " rank 15 companion". If you cannot , i expect some apologies.

[Lammia]

Since you all call me names like "inept" and handicapped" for not being able to solo Heroic +2 as a healer, please post a tutorial? Prove that you can do it as a med tech healer without any help, only with your " rank 15 companion". If you cannot , i expect some apologies.

 

I managed to do it on a Sorc healer with a level 19 comp set as tank. Took 2 hours, lots of frustration, and I almost rage quit. The second time with a level 30 cpmp: I rage quit. Not doing it on a healer solo ever again.

 

I won't call you anything. It's horribly difficult, and not made for healers If you're trying to get "The One and Only" title, I hope you have a DPS toon with high level comp that can do it (My Mara with level 50 Quinn sleepwalked through it). If you just need to complete it for KOTFE, I hope you can find company to help.

 

It's probably doable on your med tech, but could be painful and not worth frustration.

[JFKdj]

1 Switch to a DPS spec

2 ?

3 Profit

[mike_carton]

The Heroic 2+ version is interesting till EPHEMERIS and gets challenging from there for a solo player with companion whose affection level matters a little but not enough to be the differentiator. It has been possible to solo it, especially with buffs from alliance specialists but is not tuned for that unlike the planetary Heroics. Go with a friend or a guildie.

 

It is the claims about the Belsavis heroics that people cannot believe.

Edited June 25, 2017 by mike_carton

[Ramalina]

It's doable with any of the healing classes, you can even get the no buffs achievement on any of them.

 

On two of the Star Fortresses though (you can look up which ones on a guide), the final bosses have a self heal that they spam faster than you can consistently interrupt, and is basically a heal to full. Those fights are a DPS check, and if you can pass it on an undergeared healer then you're probably ready for NiM raiding. Pick any of the other Star Fortresses, and it's a difficulty level that for a person that did HM Ops in 1.0 through 3.0, is not that bad.

 

What causes suffering is not so much gear, specialization, or companion level, as it is lacking Ops level proficiency (or organized PvP level proficiency) with class combat mechanics ( rotation, stuns, interrupts, defensives, mobility use, etc.) and a similar level of proficiency with preparation and understanding encounter design. Preparation is pretty simple: gear appropriately for level, use consumables such as medpacs, stims and adrenals, use Heroic Moment, have most of the Datacron stat bonuses, read a guide like Dulfy's before doing the content, etc.

 

Understanding encounter design is a bit more of a matter of experience. RPGs as a genre have certain standard ways they do things when content is designed, the roots of which go back to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. So things like figuring out if there's a pattern of where the AOE you need to avoid will show up, recognizing which NPC abilities you need to interrupt, which abilities you need to use a defensive ability to survive, and which ones you can just take the damage from. Or other things, like in the 3 control rooms right before the Exarch, the droid in the back by the console drops that capacitor or whatever. Recognizing that you can do rooms 1 and 2 without using the capacitors allows you to save up a full stack for room 3 where the waves of adds spawn so fast that a healer has trouble taking them down, so to avoid that you use the stack of items you saved from room 2 to burn down the mini-boss in room 3 before more than one or two waves of adds can spawn.

 

Also as others implied, know the assumptions about what the designers expect from players doing the content. For the Star Fortresses achievement it was basically max character level, DPS specialization, gear of at least max level prototype quality, and a companion influence level of 20 or higher, and a high degree of competency in PvE play (HM Flashpoints, old SM Ops, HM Ops). You can do it without meeting those recommended specifications, but for every assumption you violate, and the more you violate it, the harder the resulting gameplay becomes.

 

I was a bit lazy back when the Star Fortresses came out and didn't bother reading any guides (why would I, Star Fortresses are easy), and wound up trying to do the no buffs achievement on my second Star Fortress. I main a healing sage, and generally don't respec for solo PvE because it's really not needed in most cases, and by chance it happened that my second Star Fortress was one of the ones with a self healing Exarch at the end. It was an exercise in pure misery. Afterward, I was curious about why it had been so hard and went to read a guide on Dulfy's site, and felt pretty stupid for trying to do the achievement on a Star Fortress boss encounter that's a DPS check for DPS classes with the DPS of a healing class and no buffs. The non-healing Exarchs in other Star Fortresses were sometimes a bit slow, but not particularly hard, and the second SF with a healing Exarch I used the buffs and the items, and it was moderately tough, but not an exercise in self inflicted misery.

 

Part of the problem with some of the posters on the forums is that they were beginners so long ago that they've forgotten how hard things can be for people who don't have years of experience running Ops or doing competitive PvP. A fair number may have also forgotten that there were people who were willing to help out and explain things to them at some point, which is part of how they picked up their skills.

 

I'm too lazy to recreate the already existing guides for Star Fortresses that can be found here on the forums and on Dulfy and other websites, but if you're struggling with them check out the guides and maybe also run some PvE content with a social/leveling guild that does HM Flashpoints and SM or HM Ops so that friendly helpful people can see your play and help out with any skill areas that you need to work on.

[BenduKundalini]

Part of the problem with some of the posters on the forums is that they were beginners so long ago that they've forgotten how hard things can be for people who don't have years of experience running Ops or doing competitive PvP. A fair number may have also forgotten that there were people who were willing to help out and explain things to them at some point, which is part of how they picked up their skills.

 

VERY well said.

[stoopicus]

If you cannot , i expect some apologies.

 

Well, to get this out of the way first, given what you shared in the other topic, I'll just apologize without reservation and wish you the best. I had no idea, and I'm sorry.

 

Now, the star fortress fights. As another poster noted, these are DPS checks more than anything, and two of them - Voss and one other (Nar Shaddaa? I forget) have bosses that heal to full if you cannot interrupt them. So they are reasonably hard DPS checks.

 

The reason you saw Maras do this with less trouble is that the Mara was doing significant DPS in addition to their comp. On a Merc, you would have no trouble doing this in Arsenal or IO. As a healer it's going to be much harder for those two fortresses.

 

FWIW I did it on a Jugg and a rank 30 Vette in DPS mode. That said, I also really, really know my DCDs on that class. On a Merc I would have to do it as Arsenal or I'd lose, I'm not that good with a merc.

 

Any chance you could switch spec for it? A L50 DPS Mako might not have enough DPS on her own to power through that thing - though she does pretty well on most stuff.

Edited June 25, 2017 by stoopicus

[ShadowofaMew]

It's doable with any of the healing classes, you can even get the no buffs achievement on any of them.

 

On two of the Star Fortresses though (you can look up which ones on a guide), the final bosses have a self heal that they spam faster than you can consistently interrupt, and is basically a heal to full. Those fights are a DPS check, and if you can pass it on an undergeared healer then you're probably ready for NiM raiding. Pick any of the other Star Fortresses, and it's a difficulty level that for a person that did HM Ops in 1.0 through 3.0, is not that bad.

 

What causes suffering is not so much gear, specialization, or companion level, as it is lacking Ops level proficiency (or organized PvP level proficiency) with class combat mechanics ( rotation, stuns, interrupts, defensives, mobility use, etc.) and a similar level of proficiency with preparation and understanding encounter design. Preparation is pretty simple: gear appropriately for level, use consumables such as medpacs, stims and adrenals, use Heroic Moment, have most of the Datacron stat bonuses, read a guide like Dulfy's before doing the content, etc.

 

Understanding encounter design is a bit more of a matter of experience. RPGs as a genre have certain standard ways they do things when content is designed, the roots of which go back to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. So things like figuring out if there's a pattern of where the AOE you need to avoid will show up, recognizing which NPC abilities you need to interrupt, which abilities you need to use a defensive ability to survive, and which ones you can just take the damage from. Or other things, like in the 3 control rooms right before the Exarch, the droid in the back by the console drops that capacitor or whatever. Recognizing that you can do rooms 1 and 2 without using the capacitors allows you to save up a full stack for room 3 where the waves of adds spawn so fast that a healer has trouble taking them down, so to avoid that you use the stack of items you saved from room 2 to burn down the mini-boss in room 3 before more than one or two waves of adds can spawn.

 

Also as others implied, know the assumptions about what the designers expect from players doing the content. For the Star Fortresses achievement it was basically max character level, DPS specialization, gear of at least max level prototype quality, and a companion influence level of 20 or higher, and a high degree of competency in PvE play (HM Flashpoints, old SM Ops, HM Ops). You can do it without meeting those recommended specifications, but for every assumption you violate, and the more you violate it, the harder the resulting gameplay becomes.

 

I was a bit lazy back when the Star Fortresses came out and didn't bother reading any guides (why would I, Star Fortresses are easy), and wound up trying to do the no buffs achievement on my second Star Fortress. I main a healing sage, and generally don't respec for solo PvE because it's really not needed in most cases, and by chance it happened that my second Star Fortress was one of the ones with a self healing Exarch at the end. It was an exercise in pure misery. Afterward, I was curious about why it had been so hard and went to read a guide on Dulfy's site, and felt pretty stupid for trying to do the achievement on a Star Fortress boss encounter that's a DPS check for DPS classes with the DPS of a healing class and no buffs. The non-healing Exarchs in other Star Fortresses were sometimes a bit slow, but not particularly hard, and the second SF with a healing Exarch I used the buffs and the items, and it was moderately tough, but not an exercise in self inflicted misery.

 

Part of the problem with some of the posters on the forums is that they were beginners so long ago that they've forgotten how hard things can be for people who don't have years of experience running Ops or doing competitive PvP. A fair number may have also forgotten that there were people who were willing to help out and explain things to them at some point, which is part of how they picked up their skills.

 

I'm too lazy to recreate the already existing guides for Star Fortresses that can be found here on the forums and on Dulfy and other websites, but if you're struggling with them check out the guides and maybe also run some PvE content with a social/leveling guild that does HM Flashpoints and SM or HM Ops so that friendly helpful people can see your play and help out with any skill areas that you need to work on.

 

As someone who is also struggling with Star Fortress, this both helps me and makes me sad at the same time. I tried Alderaan as a DPS Sorc and got my butt handed to me by the Exarch.

[merovejec]

Oh man, its boring with a dps too!

 

I recently finished everything on my main and realized that i didnt get the companions with him that require Star Fortress so i went there to do it. It was only then i realized how much HP the mobs and everything has! It really takes a long time to do and i am full 248 with rank 50 comp that im running in dps spec to make it faster!

[StupidWiz]

I completed all Star Fortresses +2 with my VG Tank and lv 50 comp. I set the comp to DPS until I entered the room where you can see the core of SF (I think). I switched my comp there to Healer.

 

In one certain final boss, He/she constantly healed him/herself but I interrupted him/her a lot with my interrupt, cc, and also I used the turret and the help from the Force User Voss. It helped a lot with the dps.

[JattaGin]

My main is a commando medic and I solo'd SF H2s with - back then - 192 gear or whatever it was and a companion at level 10 or so, without the alliance buffs. It was a pain in the buttocks and I had to use my companion in healer stance, too. It took ages, but it worked out.

 

One exception: The final boss from the Voss H2. I didn't have enough interrupts to be able to prevent the heal-2-full self-heal. With a guildie, the fight was done in a minute or so.

 

I never touched the H2s with a healer again after that. I assume with my better gear, level 50 companion and all the alliance buffs, it will be easier now. However, I believe that the Voss-boss will still be a problem, because the lack of necessary interrupts hasn't changed.