Hard Mode Flashpoints

[Paelos]

Right. But I think that's because of the operant conditioning employed in most MMOs: the boss is a lever I press to get my cheese, give me my electric shocks with non-cheese-getting until I learn the pattern of levers to press until I can get my cheese every time. Not "this is like PvP only less douchefilled", which really does make for a better experience in the long haul.

The problem is they make tanks irrelevant. Which I play. If you allow dual speccing and make the entire zone like that? Ok we're at least well aware of what's going on. If you make it the 3rd fight in a zone with 4 other bosses that operate normally? RAGE!

There are a lot of ways to make fights more interesting than enrage timers. One is stacking buffs with exponential effects, or stacking debuffs on the players. One is a progressive CC set on party members (ie- starting with 1 person for 4s, moving to 2, 3, 4, then 1 person for 8s). You can have the "mana drains" or exponential adds or decreasing ability cooldowns. Shit, there are tons of ways around this without <2M = win, >2m = lose.

[caladein]

Not when you have infinite and non-infinite healers in the same game.

In other games, the vast majority of bosses do have enrage timers (or more broadly speaking, "DPS checks"), they're just relative to a healer's resource pool instead of hardcoded.  That's out the window because of infinite healers.  Another option is to have the boss do an ever increasing amount of damage, but that doesn't impact all the healers equally either.  Force healers can shift their healing around quite easily to deal with that phase because of their large resource pools whereas the other two have a maximum output they can sustain without a low-damage period following it.

You can also hide DPS checks by saying "you must kill this new add in X or it blows up" but depending on specifics that's more a check for "burst DPS" or "sustained AOE DPS" which may not be where the game is particularly well balanced.

On a social note, I also like explicit enrage timers because they are clearly a "do more damage" message instead of getting the healer blamed for being bad and running out of resources.

[Ingmar]

I loved Faction Champions as a tank. Just throwing that out there.

[01101010]

There are a lot of ways to make fights more interesting than enrage timers. One is stacking buffs with exponential effects, or stacking debuffs on the players. One is a progressive CC set on party members (ie- starting with 1 person for 4s, moving to 2, 3, 4, then 1 person for 8s). You can have the "mana drains" or exponential adds or decreasing ability cooldowns. Shit, there are tons of ways around this without <2M = win, >2m = lose.

Isn't there a boss in Cadamimu (however you spell this place) that sends his bot to freeze you for a period, then picks the next person?

[Paelos]

The other thing I'm running into right now is I can't tell if I'm terrible at the Jedi Guardian tanking, or if the class is just horrifically underpowered with threat.

I honestly think I can't be THAT bad considering I was fine on a warrior in WoW, but damn I can't hold anything beyond single targeting.

[Nebu]

The other thing I'm running into right now is I can't tell if I'm terrible at the Jedi Guardian tanking, or if the class is just horrifically underpowered with threat.

I honestly think I can't be THAT bad considering I was fine on a warrior in WoW, but damn I can't hold anything beyond single targeting.

Threat generation in the game is a mess.  It's not you, it's the game.

[Ingmar]

Specifically, it is JKs. Our threat is low compared to the other 2 tanks.

EDIT: There may also be an element of no auto attack meaning your baseline threat is not where you expect it to be.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I find threat generation terribly confusing.

You know, I do think you could do a style of 'improvised tanking' that would work pretty well on a boss that didn't have a single set choreography. I know that one of the most skillful, interesting things I see tanks in MMOs do is less 'generate massive threat on single targets and keep it steadily throughout' and more 'snare/distract/pull something that's out of control or heading for the wrong guy' kind of thing. It's really a subset of how quick-thinking PvP players change targets to stop healers, occupy dangerous opponents, cc vulnerable people, etc.--smart, quick readings of the total battles. I think that's where tanking is both more fun and more demanding, when it takes a leader's quick reactions to changing tactical situations.

[Fordel]

SWTOR isn't like WoW, where all the mobs are the tanks sole responsibility is all.


I only bother grabbing aggro on Silvers or Highers in groups.

[01101010]

Do Jugs and Guards get an AoE taunt?

[Ingmar]

Yes.

[Paelos]

On a 45s cooldown.

[Ingmar]

Uh, untalented it is 45 seconds. Talented it is 30 seconds. You should DEFINITELY talent it.

[Nevermore]

That must be why your general threat is worse.  I don't know about Vanguards, but I can tell you Shadows have no talents to lower the cooldown on our AoE taunt.

[Ingmar]

If so that's an utterly horrible tradeoff I'd never make by choice.

[Fordel]

There's no way to talent Vanguard taunts to my knowledge.


Not that we need them currently.

[Sky]

I only bother grabbing aggro on Silvers or Highers in groups.

Same here. If it's three golds and a silver, I mark the silver for burn and ignore it.

My Shadow is only 25, though, and I haven't done much in the way of real tanking. A few heroics but all the FPs have been run-throughs with some highby SLAPper for loots/SP.

My favorite PUG was on Taris, had a really good consular along, marked targets even. So I started doing a bit of marking and communicating, even though one dude just blatantly kept attacking my CC target. But with two CC'ers on the job and me tanking everything except what Mr. ImasmackCC went after (once is a mistake, twice is unfortunate, three+ you're on your own) it was a lot of fun. Then it turns out the other consular is an f13'er who hadn't been invited to SLAP yet  (I forget who, sorry!)

[Paelos]

How would yall rank the hard modes in order of least difficult to most difficult? Also in terms of length to complete?

[waylander]

How would yall rank the hard modes in order of least difficult to most difficult? Also in terms of length to complete?

Black Talon: Columi bracers 
Boarding Party: Columi Gloves
False Emperor: Columi Chest
Battle of Ilum: Columi Offhand 
Directive 7: Columi Leggings
The Foundry: Columi boots -
Kaon Under Siege: Columi Helm

Black Talon is the fastest to do with a good group (35 mins), boarding party isn't bad, but the rest can take 40 mins to an hour with minmal deaths.

They need to beef up the gear drops in HM's though because you can get almost full columi in no time flat. Right now there is little replay value to them once you're geared out.

[Evildrider]

It's actually faster to get gear through Normal EV.  If you can find 8 decent ppl it's a cakewalk, and I think some of the fights are easier than some of the HM bosses. 

[Nebu]

The first boss in directive 7 can be rough if you aren't geared or have a good healer/tank

[Evildrider]

The first boss in directive 7 can be rough if you aren't geared or have a good healer/tank

Fuck Bulwark, Fuck him up his exhaust port.  I hate that boss lol.  When I first started doing HM's I think we banged our heads against him for 2 hours.

[caladein]

HM The Foundry was actually pretty easy for my group compared to some of the others.  In general it's pretty easy to gear up, even through Hard Operations, so Hard Flashpoints aren't too much of an outlier.

[Nebu]

Fuck Bulwark, Fuck him up his exhaust port.  I hate that boss lol.  When I first started doing HM's I think we banged our heads against him for 2 hours.

Have you guys done the bonus boss in the New flashpoint?  He's a charmer also.
 

[Evildrider]

Nah I haven't hit him up, I don't run many HM's anymore since I'm in full columni with some rakkata.  I do love the Kaon FP though.  I pvp too much, I'm only 3-4 pieces away from full Battlemaster on my Merc and my Powertech just dinged 48.  I think my Powertech is gonna become my main pvp guy though, just because I love pulling ppl into fire on Huttball.

[amiable]

The first boss in directive 7 can be rough if you aren't geared or have a good healer/tank

Fuck Bulwark, Fuck him up his exhaust port.  I hate that boss lol.  When I first started doing HM's I think we banged our heads against him for 2 hours.

We just tried him for the first time tonight. After hitting his enrage three times without getting him below 20 percent the general response was #$%^ this.

 I don't get people saying hard modes are easy.  In every single one of them we seem to bang our heads against a stupid enrage timer.

[Paelos]

Depends on balance I think. Also with Bulwark we had to cheese it by running under the thing when his timer went off to beat it. It buys you extra time.

[Paelos]

I just spend 10 wipes in hardmode esseles because the circle of doom kept killing our healer, even though he ran out of the target and died 3 yards from the still shining death hole.

It was impossible. I'm not pleased at these kinds of bosses when the server doesn't even recognize your positioning in terms of the effect.

[01101010]

I just spend 10 wipes in hardmode esseles because the circle of doom kept killing our healer, even though he ran out of the target and died 3 yards from the still shining death hole.

It was impossible. I'm not pleased at these kinds of bosses when the server doesn't even recognize your positioning in terms of the effect.

Was noticing something similar tonight with the grenade mobs. They'd start up the cast and the AoE circle would appear, I'd take off and still get hit if I didn't interrupt it even though I was far far far away from the circle.

[Fabricated]

The laser targets on the HK-47 fight in The False Emperor were rubber-bandy too. You'd get targeted, run away, then it'd lag a bit on finally placing the target. Easy to dodge, but harder to drop on the turrets.

[Paelos]

It was the first time I'd seen this before. I've run Esseles 7 times before tonight with few issues.