EC: Firebrand and Stormcaller (Hard Mode)

[Petrus]

Abilities:

Quote:Name
Cast Time
Range: xxm
Cooldown: xx seconds
Description:
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Stats:
HP 8m:
Stormcaller : 628,955
Firebrand : 628,955
Enrage Timer: 6 Minutes

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Boss Description:
Firebrand and Stormcaller are two tanks who you must fight simultaneously. They are unable to be re-positioned, but their turret will follow whoever has aggro.

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Hardmode Changes:
The shields can now be located in front of, to the side, or behind the tanks.
The yellow targeting reticule now sticks to a target, however it can be dispelled. When it's dispelled, it stays on the ground so players must move out of it.
Damage on DD and Incinerate armor is significantly increased.

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Fight Information:
I will refer to players as tanks and the enemy tanks as bosses, to avoid confusion.

This fight consists of two bosses - Firebrand and Stormcaller. Firebrand will be on the left, and Stormcaller on the right as you zone in. They can not be moved, although their turrets will rotate to follow whoever has aggro.

The fight is fairly simple, although it does require some heads-up play and quick movement. The raid should be split into two groups - left and right. Each group should contain 1 tank, 1 heal, and 2 dps in 8m, or the appropriate amount for 16m. It is best to put two melee on stormcaller to soak the DD debuff.

When the fight starts, each tank should engage their boss, one of the left, one on the fight. Immediately Red reticules will fill up the majority of the free space on the ground. Players should move out of the way, and DPS the bosses. The bosses also both have a frontal AoE which should be directed away from any players.

As the fight progresses, Stormcaller will cast a move called "double destruction". When it's cast, two DPS need to run between stormcaller and the tank, absorbing the DD debuff, and then quickly move out of the way. If a player has the debuff, and tries to make themselves immune to it, they will instantly die. After the first DD, and throughout the fight, Firebrand will put an "incinerate armor" debuff on his tank, and at this point both tanks need to swap.

Throughout the fight firebrand will also continue to occasionally fill the ground with reticules that players have to move out of, as well as do a frontal AoE with a wide angle and large range, so the tank should always face him away from where the raid is standing. Stormcaller will drop lighting generators on the ground, which essentially function as giant stationary lighting orbs. Players need to move out of them quickly as possible. A yellow circle will under form under players feet, and if it isn't dispelled it will do about 15,000 damage. Stormcaller will also do a frontal AoE.

While all this is going on, there are two more mechanics that come into play on this fight. At certain %s throughout the fight (80, 60, etc) a voice/prompt will say "Activating defensive systems" and 6 adds, 3 on each side, will spawn with a shield over their head. This is where the groups come into play, and each group (healers, melee, and ranged) should run under the shield and burn down the adds. On Hard modes the shields can spawn in 3 different players, so groups need to get their quickly, and use the knockback on the tank to assist, if needed. Shortly after the defensive systems are activated there will be another prompt saying "Activating Offensive Systems" and players will receive a Mortar Fire debuff. If players are under the shields they will take no damage, and if they're not they will likely die if they take more than two hits.

Firebrand's tank should be able to stand in the shield with his group, however Stormcaller will be placing the lighting spires on the ground, and that tank won't be able to stack with his group. Once the mortar phase is done everyone should run back to the middle (And finish killing the adds if they haven't). Stormcaller's tank will be taking some series hits in this phase, and so healer assignments should be planned accordingly.

The fight ends when both bosses are dead. When a boss gets killed the other gets a soft enrage so both bosses should be brought down within a few seconds of each other.

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Strategies:
While it's possible to keep the ranged/healers on the ground, we found it ideal to put everyone except one person on the tanks. As a sorcerer healer I did this, although any ranged is capable. We put our two melee on stormcaller, and our 2 ranged and our 2nd healer on firebrand.

The reason for this strat is that the yellow circles and lightning orbs that are placed on the ground reduce dps, do damage, and require movement. By watching the tank you can see when the lighting orbs will land and be out of the way before they even do. The yellow circles can be moved out of. By having one person on the ground you essentially negate all damage in this fight except from the tank/DD. Of course, whoever is on the ground has a significant heal/dps loss, but we've found it's worth the heal loss to prevent the overal damage done in the raid. An operative healer of course would be ideal for this strat.

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Tips:
- Tip - Don't aoe the adds down as you'll damage the shield generator which will in turn leave you vulnerable to Mortar damage.

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Bugs:
- Occasionally a DPS attacking Firebrand would get Stormcallers Debuff. We're not sure if there is some mechanic we were missing, or if this is a bug. As long as that person stayed on firebrand there was no reason for them to do anything different once they got the debuff, so it actually made the fight easier.

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Videos:
8m Healer Perspective:

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[Wugan]

We were able to get this to about 3% last night before a few people had to go. We believe we have the strat down and just need to get back in there with Stims and Adrenals. Most importantly, we no longer think this fight requires a tank swap. Complete thoughts and a video are here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=386472

Copy and Pasting Kihra's Strategy thoughts:

We put our Vanguard and Sage on the Firebrand hovertank. We put the Jedi Knight, Sentinel and Scoundrel on the Stormcaller hovertank. We left our ranged DPS out in the playing field.

When Double Destruction cast, the Sentinel and Scoundrel both moved in front of the Jedi Knight so that they were in front of Stormcaller and closer to it than the Jedi Knight. Thus two non-tanks got hit with the DoT, and the Jedi Knight managed to avoid it completely.

You can see this strategy on the video, since it is from my (the scoundrel) perspective. I used focus targeting to see the Double Destruction cast to know when to move.

We split into two groups for the shield phase. The Jedi Knight on Stormcaller just ran around outside dropping lightning spires in (mostly harmless) places while the rest of the people on that side got inside the shield and killed the adds inside without using AOE.

On the Firebrand side, nothing seemed any different from Story Mode. Our Vanguard got the Incinerate debuff, but as with Story Mode, we could just heal through it and ignore it.

[Petrus]

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.

[Wugan]

That's correct, they buffed the damage on the Flamecaller tank, so if you don't do a tank swap on Incernerate, you're just asking for a tank death now.

One thing to note on 16 player mode is that you get 2 shields on each side (4 total), which is a significant change and requires that you break into 4 groups of 4 and quickly identify the correct shield for your group.

[Squishei]

Note that the double destruction buff will deal about 4.5k damage each tick.

Also for the shield phase, for each person under the shield, the shield will take ~200 damage. Multiply by the number of rockets and the shield will last for exactly the number of rockets with 4 people underneath. Note that even 1 hit with a group of 4 will blow the shield early. With a group of 5 and the shield untouched it will break one early.

Note: a bug that my raid found (16 man) was the if the yellow beam was not cured, it did 0 or insignificant damage. If it was cured, then it would hit for the standard 15k

Another possible viable strat is add a third tank onto firecaller and have the storm caller tank remain on storm caller through the entire fight.

[Puli]

(04-16-2012 05:24 PM)Squishei Wrote:  Note: a bug that my raid found (16 man) was the if the yellow beam was not cured, it did 0 or insignificant damage. If it was cured, then it would hit for the standard 15k

This was either fixed or never broken on 8 man. We killed these guys today and the yellow beam missiles definitely did full damage. However, they can be dodged.

[Allah]

(04-18-2012 03:32 PM)Puli Wrote:  

(04-16-2012 05:24 PM)Squishei Wrote:  Note: a bug that my raid found (16 man) was the if the yellow beam was not cured, it did 0 or insignificant damage. If it was cured, then it would hit for the standard 15k

This was either fixed or never broken on 8 man. We killed these guys today and the yellow beam missiles definitely did full damage. However, they can be dodged.

16hardmode if you dont touch the yellow beam nothing happens, it just dissipates from the person and nothing happens. If you dispel it, then he launches rockets at that location 1-2 seconds later. I neglected to stand in said rockets to see if they did damage for great science, but alas was too scared.

[Rooks]

(04-16-2012 05:24 PM)Squishei Wrote:  Another possible viable strat is add a third tank onto firecaller and have the storm caller tank remain on storm caller through the entire fight.

This seems beautifully simplistic, but I am curious if it has been tried yet. Could a strong dps (VG, Guardian, with CDs) stand in for the Missile Barrage long enough for Incinerate Armour to fall off?

[Allah]

(04-19-2012 09:00 PM)Rooks Wrote:  

(04-16-2012 05:24 PM)Squishei Wrote:  Another possible viable strat is add a third tank onto firecaller and have the storm caller tank remain on storm caller through the entire fight.

This seems beautifully simplistic, but I am curious if it has been tried yet. Could a strong dps (VG, Guardian, with CDs) stand in for the Missile Barrage long enough for Incinerate Armour to fall off?

yes

[Badernet]

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.