Eternity Vault: SOA

[Saeria]

What? Our experience was if you didn't force sprint or speed up you risked taking a third hit. We've killed Soa 16 and we ALWAYS got at least 1 explosion + aura pulse, making it preferable to always sprint/speed up (if possible) to avoid taking 1 explosion + 2 aura pulse.

And unless I am misunderstanding and you're suggesting force speed causes it to bug and cause 2 explosions + 1 pulse I see no reason to NOT force speed (or any other kind of sprint/speed up). Heck, if all you were getting is 2 explosions and 0 pulses I'd say that's preferable than anything else, even if it's slightly more damage than 1 explosion + 1 pulse, it's safer since you don't risk an extra pulse.

For what it's worth, on 16 man we basically came up with the same strategy as Petrus. First person to get called goes forward-and-left, second person runs straight through the boss, third person goes forward-and-right. So assuming balls spawn in say the 9-o'clock to 3-o'clock region of a clock, first name always goes to 9 o'clock, second to 12 o'clock and third to 3 o'clock. This does not mean to pop the first ball you see. But once you're out there wait till your ball comes for you, pop it, and come back in.

As far as hit points go, I disagree with some of the assessment in this thread. There are more ways to get extra hit points, players are just stubborn. First, you can use health/defense stims instead of your main-stat stims. Second, almost all mods give the option between more-stamina and less-stamina. If you're undergeared, go for the more-stamina options. In my opinion you need at least 17.5k to 18k hp to do Nightmare Soa -- and that's assuming you have a Sorc shield/bubble. The damage seems to me around ~8k for an explosion, ~6k for a pulse, but you can easily eat 2 pulses which means you should expect around ~20k damage to be safe.

Also, for the love of god don't use aggro-wipe abilities when you're targetted. That's a train wreck waiting to happen. (Balls change target, but there's no announcement, so yeah).