Originally Posted by
Ghobe
The latest rumor is end of April for the release of 1.2, and this is what it was moved to after they decided that raiding in particular needed more testing(which is more of the reason why it wasn't released last week).
From what I'm hearing from our contacts over in the actual raid beta testers, is that Explosive Conflict(the new OP) is going to be a major wake up call. Anyone who called the release raids easy(which I find funny since such a small amount of the community has actually downed A boss on nightmare much less all of them even less so, gotten their timed titles) is pretty much going to be kicked in the balls and while they're bending over and gasping for air, a blaster will be put into their mouth and fired. The top guild on our a server is having extreme issues with the FIRST BOSS on story(normal) mode, and it's not because of bugs, it's that brutal. I can tell you right now, if you're not in at least 3/4 rakata you WILL be one shot.
GO GO SPOILERS ZOMG!
The first boss of the raid has been described in a number of ways, ranging from Twin Emps, to Jarg and Sorno being fused with murder droids. It's a double boss fight if you couldn't figure it out. It requires two tanks for multiple reasons. That first reason, if the mobs are next to each other they receive a massive damage boost, which if they're still near, even full rakata'd tanks will be one shot. Second, they put a stack debuff causing tank swapping. Third, along with that tank swap, they also need to be pulled back quite often. Every so often one of the mobs leaps to the other and causes a 17k damage aoe(reminder: normal). I haven't been clued into the rest of the mechanics, but that's what I've been told is the toughest part of that particular fight.
END SPOILERS END!
And in terms of current raid content available in the game, I don't feel it's unforgiving enough. Bugs be damned, but if they were all fixed, the encounters would be a joke for the most part. For example, Soa's(final boss of eternity vault) platforming phases don't get harder between difficulties outside of the dot MIGHT kill you if your healers are lagging out. Quite frankly, they could have dramatically increased the number of Ancient Power Sources and Orb counts that needed to be removed. Hard mode probably could have easily required 15 to absolve all orbs, and nightmare could have probably taken it to another level(which it should have) and required 25(I believe that was the max per platforming phase that could be destroyed) to absolve as many orbs as you could and would still leave 3-5 orbs on him. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to take out all the Ancient Power Sources to try and fix the orb issue, and we discovered that by doing so we were actually bugging the encounter >.> Bonethrasher on nightmare is probably the most challenging boss non-bugged, which is kind of sad considering he's the first boss.
Quite frankly, I'm excited for EC, especially if it's bug free and provides a challenge that comes in terms of mechanics rather than bugs.