EC: Firebrand and Stormcaller (Hard Mode)

[Rakunvar]

(04-20-2012 03:13 PM)Badernet Wrote:  So my guild encountered a little bug during this boss tonight. It's not exactly a bug with the boss, but with the on proc relics.

Me and our Merc were noticing our shield popping early even tho we never touched it. So I found this in my combat log:

Code:

[21:36:44.069] [@Avenge] [Trandoshan Shooter {2876421202509824}] [Acid Blade {1791387909488640}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Poisoned (Tech) {1791387909488896}] ()
[21:36:44.233] [@Avenge] [Shield Generator {2876429792444416}] [Dark Spike {2785449500213248}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (168 internal {836045448940876}) <126>
[21:36:44.625] [@Avenge] [Trandoshan Shooter {2876421202509824}] [Backstab {814789655789568}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (3831* kinetic {836045448940873}) <2873>

The trinket was proccing on the shield even when I was clearly attacking the trandoshan. Dark Spike is the proc dmg ability from my trinket.

Not really too much of a big deal, but I just thought I should point it out.

Yep same thing on our logs showing that the Shield Generator was taking damage from our Proc. trinkets. Guessing either because of bad coding making it proc on a random able to be damaged target, or since it shows the mortar volley as our damage on the generator that its procing due on it.

[Tadow]

My guild tried this last night and did well concerning strategy but ran into some issues on dps. I play a marauder and with the assassin as the other melee we only got stormcaller to a nine percent on HM. Please bear in mind that our ranged had similar issues with firebrand. A few of us are still littered with columi gear and I was wondering if that might be our problem. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. We managed DD well and also the tank swap. I did notice that sometimes our shield went down a little quicker than usual though. towards the latter part of the tries we practiced the staying on the tanks until they blew us to the shields but it wasn't enough to make up the difference.

[Khadroth]

(04-21-2012 12:03 AM)Tadow Wrote:  My guild tried this last night and did well concerning strategy but ran into some issues on dps. I play a marauder and with the assassin as the other melee we only got stormcaller to a nine percent on HM. Please bear in mind that our ranged had similar issues with firebrand. A few of us are still littered with columi gear and I was wondering if that might be our problem. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. We managed DD well and also the tank swap. I did notice that sometimes our shield went down a little quicker than usual though. towards the latter part of the tries we practiced the staying on the tanks until they blew us to the shields but it wasn't enough to make up the difference.

The shield blowing early is due to someone hitting it, unless you're getting a bug like the above poster. I wouldn't recommend having a GS/Sniper use cover pulse to knock the adds out of the shield so you can aoe them. This seemed to somehow dmg the shield generator for us (despite the fact that it does no dmg) so we had to stop using it.

There's quite a few ways to squeeze out extra dps on this fight which is partly what I like about it (it benefits the smart players). For starters if you're stuck in columi gear, try working on your crit crafted gear to stuff it with augments, you're going to need any edge you can if you're not in 90% rakata or more as a group. Try to be efficient with your on-boss dps time. Even when you see defensive systems coming keep going to town on the boss while you maneuver yourself into position so that the knockback will put you right near the shield. Your ranged can also keep dots rolling on the tanks while in the shield during missle barrage, or if they're a dot oriented class can try to keep them rolling on both tanks during normal times.

[Allah]

(04-21-2012 01:05 AM)Khadroth Wrote:  

(04-21-2012 12:03 AM)Tadow Wrote:  My guild tried this last night and did well concerning strategy but ran into some issues on dps. I play a marauder and with the assassin as the other melee we only got stormcaller to a nine percent on HM. Please bear in mind that our ranged had similar issues with firebrand. A few of us are still littered with columi gear and I was wondering if that might be our problem. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. We managed DD well and also the tank swap. I did notice that sometimes our shield went down a little quicker than usual though. towards the latter part of the tries we practiced the staying on the tanks until they blew us to the shields but it wasn't enough to make up the difference.

The shield blowing early is due to someone hitting it, unless you're getting a bug like the above poster. I wouldn't recommend having a GS/Sniper use cover pulse to knock the adds out of the shield so you can aoe them. This seemed to somehow dmg the shield generator for us (despite the fact that it does no dmg) so we had to stop using it.

There's quite a few ways to squeeze out extra dps on this fight which is partly what I like about it (it benefits the smart players). For starters if you're stuck in columi gear, try working on your crit crafted gear to stuff it with augments, you're going to need any edge you can if you're not in 90% rakata or more as a group. Try to be efficient with your on-boss dps time. Even when you see defensive systems coming keep going to town on the boss while you maneuver yourself into position so that the knockback will put you right near the shield. Your ranged can also keep dots rolling on the tanks while in the shield during missle barrage, or if they're a dot oriented class can try to keep them rolling on both tanks during normal times.

They have a like 90% dmg reduction while in the shield during mortar volley, so squeezing in dps while in shields are up isnt that feasible. Getting it in before mortar volley starts however is legit and needs to be done. It is a nice dps check and slacker dps will prevent you from killing them.

[therealrev]

We had an issue where we were actually doing too much DPS in this fight (I was averaging 1200-1400 on SC as a Sentinel with a Gunslinger with me). DD is cast approximately every 10% on the 2's (92%, 82%, etc). What kept happening with us is one or both groups would DPS one of the bosses to 80% or below before the DD cast was done and the tank could move the turret fully back around, which caused the Defensive Systems phase to begin and a lightning dome to be dropped on top of SC which usually landed on top of melee or heals. To fix this, we completely stopped DPS 1-2% before the transition to allow the tank time to reposition SC.

We also had a threat issue where Sentinels would pull threat right after casting Inspiration even while using our threat dump, which caused the tanks to have to blow all of their cooldowns and be unable to retaunt the boss on the Incinerate Armor switch. We solved this by putting one sentinel in each group, so the tanks and heals would receive Inspiration instead of only the DPS, as well as not starting DPS for the first 5-10 secs to let the tanks build threat. Seems basic I know, but figured I would save some people time if they were having the same issue.

Our raid composition was as follows: FB had a commando healer, jedi guardian tank, and jedi sentinel on top of the boss, with our commando DPS on the ground. SC had a scoundrel healer, vanguard tank, jedi sentinel, and gunslinger all on the tank. Our DPS on the two bosses was essentially even, with only a ~1-2% variance at times.

One other tip is to have the tank who is outside the shields on the Defensive Systems phase run towards the group in the FB shield and have the FB healer heal him, since this healer will be less stressed due to the presence of a tank who can pick up the adds. We found it to be too much for the SC healer to heal himself and the two DPS through the add damage they were taking and have to worry about the tank outside of the shield.

I'll expand this post further in the future with other thoughts.

[Allah]

(04-23-2012 06:11 AM)therealrev Wrote:  We had an issue where we were actually doing too much DPS in this fight (I was averaging 1200-1400 on SC as a Sentinel with a Gunslinger with me). DD is cast approximately every 10% on the 2's (92%, 82%, etc). What kept happening with us is one or both groups would DPS one of the bosses to 80% or below before the DD cast was done and the tank could move the turret fully back around, which caused the Defensive Systems phase to begin and a lightning dome to be dropped on top of SC which usually landed on top of melee or heals. To fix this, we completely stopped DPS 1-2% before the transition to allow the tank time to reposition SC.

We also had a threat issue where Sentinels would pull threat right after casting Inspiration even while using our threat dump, which caused the tanks to have to blow all of their cooldowns and be unable to retaunt the boss on the Incinerate Armor switch. We solved this by putting one sentinel in each group, so the tanks and heals would receive Inspiration instead of only the DPS, as well as not starting DPS for the first 5-10 secs to let the tanks build threat. Seems basic I know, but figured I would save some people time if they were having the same issue.

Our raid composition was as follows: FB had a commando healer, jedi guardian tank, and jedi sentinel on top of the boss, with our commando DPS on the ground. SC had a scoundrel healer, vanguard tank, jedi sentinel, and gunslinger all on the tank. Our DPS on the two bosses was essentially even, with only a ~1-2% variance at times.

One other tip is to have the tank who is outside the shields on the Defensive Systems phase run towards the group in the FB shield and have the FB healer heal him, since this healer will be less stressed due to the presence of a tank who can pick up the adds. We found it to be too much for the SC healer to heal himself and the two DPS through the add damage they were taking and have to worry about the tank outside of the shield.

I'll expand this post further in the future with other thoughts.

DD is actually on a timer, and not % based. If you dps hard enough you only get 1 per transition.

[Nara]

I am the commando healer in the guild with therealrev and we managed to get this fight down a couple hours ago. The only difference in raid comp was a shadow instead of the gunslinger as a dps on SC. We timed the DDs at 15s and 45s after the start of the fight and each shield phase and managed to dps the boss to the shield phase percentage prior to the second DD around 50% of the time. Once we got our strat down we did hit the rage timer a couple times due to some dps deaths near the end. The kill attempt was completely clean and we cleared the rage timer by about 15 seconds. It would seem by this that the dps needs to be hitting the shield phase percentages at approximately the second DD cast to stay on track for the kill.

From a healer standpoint having the SC tank kite the lightning domes over to the FB group during the mortar volleys helped immensely. Both myself and the scoundrel healer had trouble healing through these phases with the DD debuff on both of the dps along with the add damage on everyone inside the shield plus the tank taking damage from the mortar volleys. Healing on the FB side, I had no difficulty keeping my group up under the shield with a tank to control the adds and keeping the other tank up outside the shield.

Note: our group is mostly full rakata

[therealrev]

(04-23-2012 01:49 PM)Allah Wrote:  

(04-23-2012 06:11 AM)therealrev Wrote:  We had an issue where we were actually doing too much DPS in this fight (I was averaging 1200-1400 on SC as a Sentinel with a Gunslinger with me). DD is cast approximately every 10% on the 2's (92%, 82%, etc). What kept happening with us is one or both groups would DPS one of the bosses to 80% or below before the DD cast was done and the tank could move the turret fully back around, which caused the Defensive Systems phase to begin and a lightning dome to be dropped on top of SC which usually landed on top of melee or heals. To fix this, we completely stopped DPS 1-2% before the transition to allow the tank time to reposition SC.

We also had a threat issue where Sentinels would pull threat right after casting Inspiration even while using our threat dump, which caused the tanks to have to blow all of their cooldowns and be unable to retaunt the boss on the Incinerate Armor switch. We solved this by putting one sentinel in each group, so the tanks and heals would receive Inspiration instead of only the DPS, as well as not starting DPS for the first 5-10 secs to let the tanks build threat. Seems basic I know, but figured I would save some people time if they were having the same issue.

Our raid composition was as follows: FB had a commando healer, jedi guardian tank, and jedi sentinel on top of the boss, with our commando DPS on the ground. SC had a scoundrel healer, vanguard tank, jedi sentinel, and gunslinger all on the tank. Our DPS on the two bosses was essentially even, with only a ~1-2% variance at times.

One other tip is to have the tank who is outside the shields on the Defensive Systems phase run towards the group in the FB shield and have the FB healer heal him, since this healer will be less stressed due to the presence of a tank who can pick up the adds. We found it to be too much for the SC healer to heal himself and the two DPS through the add damage they were taking and have to worry about the tank outside of the shield.

I'll expand this post further in the future with other thoughts.

DD is actually on a timer, and not % based. If you dps hard enough you only get 1 per transition.

You're exactly right, as Nara indicated above. If you push DPS hard enough you can skip DD entirely on the transition phases, which we had no problem doing by maximizing DPS through previously mentioned strategies (letting the tank knock you back, popping relics on CD, etc). Even if we miss the DD DPS push by 1-2 seconds, we just had the tank move backwards off of SC to avoid the lightning dome that would drop on him before the 'Defensive Systems' phase.

[Petrus]

Grats on the kill - just want to point a few things out to help squeeze some extra DPS out.

Unfortunately I didn't fraps this, but I do have a link to our live stream of this fight, and it was a near perfect kill.

http://www.twitch.tv/mmomechanics/b/315333677 - start at 54:00


Anyways, as you can see I (Sorcerer Healer) am on the ground taking all the ranged attacks, and I'm also the SC healer. By having me on the ground it means none of the ranged have to move, and allows for better DPS. In this particular attempt our Lethality Operative pulled 1560 on the fight, and our Anni Marauder pulled 1530. (The Op was not in the group that got bloodlust.)

We also positioned Everyone so that our Merc healer (on FB) healed himself and the two tanks, while myself, on the ground near SC would heal me, the two DPS (Lethality Sniper/Marauder) taking DD, and then the SC tank.

This healing makeup worked great, and would have been even easier if I was an Operative instead of a sorc.


As far as the SC mortar volleys - having the tank run over there is a viable strategy but it kills your DPS a little, depending on where the shields land. DPS can't go all out on the bosses until the tanks are back in position, so it's best for the tanks to stay near SC. As a sorcerer I managed to keep my group up just fine (Quick CC on the adds does wonders) as well as the tanks, and I was also able to gain force back each phase. We never knocked the shield down early though, and we did call out the shields so that we were always in. It is a little harder to keep people up if they take a mortar volley, though certainly still doable.


*Edit* Our videos show different positioning than what this strat says - specifically that live stream kill. Today or tomorrow I'll get the first two bosses up to date with the new strat, but I'd highly reccomend watching that boss kill video linked in this post.

[Pwncakes]

(04-13-2012 12:57 AM)Petrus Wrote:  The OP has been updated to reflect the most recent changes to the fight. The previous post which states you no longer need to tank swap is incorrect (although only because of changes to the fight - it was correct at the time.) This fight requires a tank swap on hard mode.

If anyone is interested in updating and correcting any errors in the guide please send myself or MasterKiller a PM, as I no longer have the time to commit to maintaining these guides at the level they should be.

If you're tank swapping on HM your making this fight harder than it needs to be. I usually don't give strats out but you only need a class with a taunt to help your FB tank (we use an Assassin). If you call out DD then have that person count to 2 then taunt he/she will become the target of Incin Armor then once it's done casting have the FB tank taunt back. This is by far and away the best way to approach this fight. There's no tank swap and neither tank needs to worry about losing aggro on either tanks.