Endgame Operation Guide (8-man)

[Denae]

I haven't been able to find many guides out there so far that were complete and correct. I've tried to make my guide as complete and accurate as possible without being too long. It includes both Normal and Hard mode. I will add Nightmare if I find there are any special tactic required, but so far it's just been the same as Hard except more boss health and damage. I hope this guide is helpful. Let me know if I've made a mistake or missed an important strategy. My point of view is as an Operative healer. Dralvin, Corellian Run server.

Eternity Vault

Annihilation Droid XRR-3

Abilities:

Missile Salvo -- The boss will hunker down and begin firing missiles at everyone in the group. Each missile does 1-2k damage. You can avoid damage entirely by hiding behind one of the turret pillars to break line of sight. It's also possible to use defensive cooldowns and simply heal through the damage. If you do hide, the tank should still stay with the boss (and that makes it easy to know when the missle salvo has finished). On hardmode, these do slightly more damage but you should heal through as many salvos as you can to avoid hitting the enrage.

Rocket Burst -- The boss will target a random player (you will see a green target reticule to let you know it's coming) and fire a missle, doing heavy damage and knocking the player far back. To minimize the distance you have to run to get back to the fight, run closer to the boss or try to put your back to a turret pillar. Don't stand next to other players or you may get them hit as well (the radius is very small though, so this should not be an issue). On hardmode this just does a little bit more damage. On nightmare, this leaves a flame DoT on the target that deals significant damage and cannot be cleansed.

Swipe -- The boss will occassionally do a massive swipe in front of him, knocking back and stunning players in melee range. Deals heavy damage, but still easily healed through. It remains the same on hardmode.

Mine Drop -- The boss will drop mines on all players. These do heavy damage and should be avoided. You can easily see where they will land by the red target circle on the floor. You have plenty of time to move away, just be careful not to run into another player's circle. On hardmode, many more mines will drop and they do more damage -- just keep moving and you won't get hit.

Shockwave -- Minor damage and brief stun for players within melee range. Not an issue.

Strategy:

The damage output from this boss is insignificant except during the missile salvos. On hardmode the only challenge is beating the enrage timer. Healers won't have much to do and can help dps most of the fight. You need really only need 1 tank and 1 healer, but the enrage is not that tight. Note that the boss actually dies a bit before he reaches 0 hp -- you know you've won when he starts slowly slumping over.


Gharj

Abilities:

Frenzy -- When Gharj enters a frenzy he starts stomping and causes the current island to sink. A new island and a path to it will appear and players simply need to jump across the rocks to the next island. The stomps do heavy damage, especially on hardmode, so make sure not to be close to Gharj while he's doing this. On hardmode the damage is enough that it's better to run through lava for a short time than run through the boss and get stomped on. When Gharj's health is below 50% he will also summon several Akk Dog adds when he Frenzies. These adds are not really a threat and are easily killed with AoE. The group should always prioritize moving to the next island to killing adds. On hardmode, you need as much dps on the boss as you can to beat the enrage. Pull the adds to the boss and AoE them all down.

Pounce -- Gharj will do a big stomp that deals heavy damage to anyone close to him. Players should move away from the boss to avoid this. There is a warning that appears and gives you plenty of time to move out. The tank simply stands in it.

Knockback -- Gharj will knockback all players a moderate distance. The damage here comes from getting knocked into lava. You can easily minimize this damage by standing close to the boss so the knockback just throws you to the edge of the platform. This actually works out well because the boss alternates his Pounce and Knockbacks. Simply run close to the boss after a Pounce, then the following Knockback will put you out of range for the next Pounce.

Strategy:
Most of the damage in this fight comes from lava -- either players getting knocked into it or doing poorly on jumps when moving to a new island. It's still not terribly difficult to heal through. Note that absorb effects do not work against environmental damage, so Sorcerer/Sage shields will not work against lava damage. Also, the lava flowing down from the ceiling will deal extra damage if you stand in it, so be sure to avoid. The main cause of death will be players running through Gharj while they try to get to the new island and getting stomped to death. Just be smart about your positioning and quick at changing islands and this boss should be no issue.


Ancient Pylons

Strategy:

This is a puzzle boss and the goal is to rotate the symbols on each pylon such that the middle symbol matches the outer symbols on each of the 4 rings. While you do this adds will continue to spawn, but these present little challenge. The group will need to split in half with 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 dps on each pylon. The tank on each side picks up the adds, the dps kill the adds, and the healer works the puzzle and throws occasional heals as needed.
The standard enemies that spawn are killed quickly. The only ability to watch for is a reflective shield which will reflect twice the damage you deal back to you. You can interrupt the cast to prevent the shield entirely or simply take care not to kill yourself if it does get cast. Rarely a large elite Acklay will spawn. It's important to tank these right away as they deal heavy damage. They are still vulnerable to stuns and other cc effects.

The puzzle is controlled by clicking on the left or right control panels in front of the pylon. The symbols starting position and matches are random each attempt, but the order of the symbols on each wheel is always the same.
If you click the right console the order is as follows:

Blue -> Green -> Red -> Purple -> White -> Yellow -> Blue

Clicking the left panel just reverses the order. For example, if the center symbol currently shows Red then clicking the right panel will rotate it to Purple while clicking the left panel will rotate it to Green.

Before starting the encounter, you should examine the pylon and determine how to solve it in the fewest amount of clicks. There is an "enrage" timer for this fight where tons of the Acklays will spawn and overwhelm the group in short order, so you do want to solve the puzzle as quickly as you can. Both Pylons need to solve each wheel before advancing to the next one. When all 4 wheels on each pylon are solved, you win.

On hardmode, players that click on a console will get a debuff for 30s that prevents them from clicking the console again. Therfore, you will need more than 1 person to click and good communication is important. In addition, you will also need to solve each wheel in the correct order or the encounter will lock and you will have to reset the phase to try again. The correct order is north, south, south, north. That means that the north pylon solves the bottom wheel first, the south pylon solves the second and third wheels first, and the north solves the final wheel first. Make sure to wait until you see the message saying that a pylon is solved and waiting on the other pylon before you solve the other or the encounter can bug out.

This encounter can be very frustrating and buggy at times. I've seen many forum posts of people claiming all sorts of different solve orders that worked or didn't work. I don't know if these people are full of it or if the encounter just bugged in their favor. The only order we have had success with is NSSN (and it still bugged a few times). If for whatever reason you can no longer click the consoles or if clicking the consoles doesn't rotate the symbols, the encounter has locked and you will have to zone out, reset phase, and try again. Note that another bug we encountered was that the fight timer seems to start as soon as you engage the enemies standing in front of each pylon. Even though you drop out of combat and no more enemies spawn until someone clicks a console, the timer starts so you need to start right away or you'll hit the enrage.


Infernal Council

Strategy:

For this encounter, each player needs to defeat a boss on their own, with no help from other players. The first boss you attack will link to you and if you attempt to damage any other boss or heal anyone other than yourself, you will get a debuff that prevents you from doing any damage or healing at all. The goal is for all players to kill their boss within 2 minutes. The fight starts when someone clicks the console. Failure to beat the timer will reset the encounter. If any players dies, the encounter will also reset.

There are 3 types of bosses -- 4 Marauders, 2 Assassins, and 2 Juggernauts. The Marauders have high health and can knockback, but deal very minimal damage. The Assassins have low health but deal high damage. The Juggernauts have medium health and deal moderate damage. The idea is to assign dps players to kill Marauders, healers to kill Assassins, and tanks to kill Juggernauts. This should be no real challenge. If for whatever reason a dps player cannot kill their Marauder, you can swap them to a Juggernaut. Honestly though, a tank or even a healer should have enough dps to kill even a Marauder.

On hardmode, the bosses simply have more health and deal a little more damage. If you beat the enrage timer on previous bosses, this encounter should be a cakewalk.


Soa

This is a 3 phase encounter with a short transition between each phase.

Phase 1:
Soa will start the fight invulnerable, but this effect drops a few seconds after engaging. During this phase he will randomly hit players with lightning bolts for moderate damage and will place a large AoE around the small pyramid spires. The AoE does heavy damage and slows anyone caught in it, but is entirely predictable and easy to avoid. Once Soa drops below 75% he will put up an immunity shield and begin the first transition phase. Hardmode is identical in phase 1.

Phase 1 Transition:
All players need to immediately move to the outer edge of the platform, as Soa will drop all the center platforms shortly after putting up his invulnerability shield. The raid will need to jump down to the closest platforms and make their way down to the next level. The first platform you jump down to will always be on the west side of the room (the side you entered on). On each platform there is a power source (the small pyramid spires) that should be destroyed as the group moves down. Failure to destroy these will give Soa a buff in the next phase that will deal heavy damage to the group and make the fight significantly harder. Now, you should only need to kill 5 of these to get rid of the buff stacks, but we found it can bug out if you skip the first one, so make sure to kill it. As you are jumping down, there will be occasional breaks where you need to wait for Soa to drop more platforms down for you to continue. Use these breaks to heal the group up from the fall damage (stack up for AoE heals). Once you reach the bottom, phase 2 begins. This transition will likely be confusing the first time, but it is always the same so after a few tries you should have this down easily.

Phase 2:
Soa will no longer use his AoE from phase 1, but gains several new abilities.

Mind Trap -- Soa will cast this shortly after the phase begins. A Mind Trap will spawn at a random location in the room and trap a player inside it. Other players must attack and quickly destroy the Mind Trap to free the trapped player. The trapped player will take minor damage from the add inside the trap, so use a medpack if trapped at low health. Soa will continue to cast Mind Traps on a consistant timer throughout this phase. It is important to kill these quickly. These are the same on hardmode.

Ball Lightning -- Soa will summon a Ball Lightning that will target and chase a random player. The ball lightning will deal minor damage to players near it and explode for heavy damage on contact with its target. Players simply need to avoid these on normal mode. On hardmode, 2 balls spawn at once and they are a much greater threat, as they will deal heavy damage to nearby players and they will not despawn unless detonated. The players targeted should immediately run to their ball and detonate it. Do not hesitate when running up to one, as you will still take damage from being near it and multiple AoE ticks plus detonation can easily kill you. You should be at high health and should use defensive cooldowns when popping your lightning ball (if you have a Sorcerer/Sage healer they should shield you before you run in). You never want to drag a lightning ball through the middle where Soa is being tanked. Note that the ball lightnings spawn from the pyramid spires on the outer edges of the platform. Do not be near the spawn points.

Force Cyclone -- Soa will occasionally lift a player into the air and toss them about the room. This deals minor damage and takes the player out of the fight for the duration. When this ability finishes, the player will be dropped in the center of the room. This is why ball lightnings should never be dragged through the middle on hardmode, as they will kill a cycloned player before they can recover. In addition, if you transition to the next phase while a player is cycloned, they will still be dropped in the center and will fall to their death.

Transition -- When Soa reaches 30% health he will again put an immunity shield up and repeat the transition phase. Simply drop down while killing the power sources just like in the previous transition. Phase 3 begins when players reach the bottom. The only thing to be careful of here is not to push this transition if a player is in a cyclone. Doing so will cause the cycloned player to die. Players that were in a Mind Trap will be freed automatically when the transition begins.

Phase 3:
In the final phase, Soa will remain immune to damage and cast Mind Traps much more frequently. He still summons Ball Lightning but no longer uses Force Cyclone. You will notice a large pyramid slowly dropping down from above. The tank must position Soa directly under this such that when it falls, it hits Soa. Doing so will break Soa's shield for a few seconds and allow you to damage him. Do not be near Soa when the pyramid falls, as it will do very heavy damage. All players should focus on dealing as much damage to Soa as possible while he is vulnerable. You will only get 3-4 vulnerable stages before he enrages and begins to kill people off. Even if there is a Mind Trap, you should ignore it and focus Soa until his shield comes back up. The tank getting stuck in a Mind Trap is a danger here, as it can cause Soa to move out of range of the falling pyramid. Simply have another player ready to taunt Soa and keep him in the correct positon if this happens. Soa does not deal heavy damage so even a non-tank can do this.

I would suggest manually reseting phase for every Soa attempt. Many bugs arise from the fight not resetting properly after a wipe. Most of the other bugs will not be an issue if you execute the fight properly. We noticed some ball lightnings can become invisible if you do not detonate them after a time. You can usually still see where they are if you have nameplates turned on. Detonate them quickly and this is not an issue. If a ball lightning is chasing a player who gets mind trapped, cycloned, or killed, the ball lightning will usually just switch to a different player but you won't get an announcement for who it's on. Just figure out who it is targeted on and detonate like usual. In very rare cases, the ball lightning will get stuck in evade mode. It will still deal damage but won't move. It will either resume following the person who was trapped or cycloned once they are free or it will just despawn.

Karagga's Palace

Bonethrasher

This boss has no real aggro table and will simply chase random players. He has 4 different attacks.

Swipe -- The boss will stop and do a massive swipe in a cone in front of him. Players hit by this will take heavy damage.

Pound -- The boss will pound a player into the floor, stunning the player and dealing heavy damage. Once the ability ends, the player will have an "injured" debuff for a few seconds that slows movement speed and causes the player to take fatal damage if hit by a Swipe.

Backhand -- The boss will knockback players around him a moderate distance. This ability comes out too quick to avoid, so players should take care not to be near an edge or they can get punted into the acid pit and killed.

Stomp -- The boss will squat down and then do a stomp that deals moderate damage to all players and tosses them up into the air a small distance. You cannot avoid this, but it can miss.

The best strategy is to try to keep the boss in the middle as much as possible. The person the boss is currently fixated on should not move so that other players can more easily position themselves out of swipe damage (if the player fixated runs around, the boss will spin and predicting where the swipe will land becomes difficult). It's better for 1 person to be hit by Swipe than the entire group. Of course, the exception is if a player has been Injured by the Pound. In this case, they need to do anything they can to avoid the Swipe or they will die.

Occasionally, a Gamorean will get tossed down onto the outer edge of the platform. If the boss gets near this add he will eat it and enrage for 20s, increasing all boss damage by 20%. Players should watch for this add and kill it as soon as it spawns. The player currently being chased by the boss should make sure not to bring the boss over to the add. These adds have very little health and can be stunned or immobilized. Do not try to knock the add into the acid pit, as it can cause the boss to evade and reset.

At 50% health, Karagga will release 2 elite adds into the fight. A tank should pick these up to minimize damage. You can kill these adds or simply tank them until the end of the fight. On hardmode you may have trouble beating the enrage timer so you may wish to keep all dps on the boss and just kill the adds after. They do not deal significant damage.

On hardmode, the boss has a fair bit more health and deals a bit more damage. Beating the enrage timer will be the challenge here. Hopefully, players are doing a good job at avoiding Swipes so that the healers can help dps most of the time. You could easily do this with 1 healer if you are still having dps problems. If you do reach the enrage timer, you still have time to finish the boss off. However, getting hit by Swipe or Pound now will cause a death and the Stomp will kill players who are not full health. Use defensive cooldowns and medpacks to survive the Stomp damage while you finish off the boss.


Jarg and Sorno
(Could use more info on exactly when these bosses switch "phases". I'm usually too focused on healing to watch boss health or timers.)

This encounter is against 2 Bounty Hunter type bosses. They do not share a health pool, but must be killed at roughly the same time because the other will enrage upon his partner's death.

Jarg uses mostly melee range attacks and has a heavy damage AoE flamethrower. He will also frequently place a fire DoT on random players that should be cleansed off. You should put ranged dps on this boss if possible. Sorno uses mostly ranged attacks and heals. He will also frequently grapple random players over to him. Put melee dps on this boss and interrupt his heals. You can also interrupt his Unload to reduce tank damage. On hardmode, each boss has a debuff he will place on the tank. Jarg's debuff increases fire damage taken and Sorno's debuff increases Unload damage. You may need to do a tank swap on occasion if you are slow on interrupting the Unload or the tanks will start taking fatal amounts of damage.

After a time, both bosses will jump to the center of the room and reset aggro. Jarg will use his AoE flamethrower here and Sorno will grapple players into it. Simply move away from Jarg.

Several times throughout the fight, Jarg will drop a Carbonite Probe that will stun the tank (or whoever has aggro) until the Probe is destroyed. On hardmode, he will drop a second Probe a few seconds later. At the same time, Sorno will jet up to the balcony of the room and begin to snipe random players. You can break line of sight by running under the balcony to avoid damage. In addition, missiles will target random players but can be avoided by moving out of the purple targets that appear on the floor. On hardmode, the missiles fire much faster and you will get hit by at least 1 even if you move out quickly.

Below 30% health the bosses will start "Plan D". They will frequently do a combo attack where Jarg fires a tracer missile and Sorno rail shots a random player for massive damage. Players need to kept at high health or this move can be fatal. The combo comes out very fast so healers need to be on their toes.

On hardmode and nightmare, this fight is significantly harder to heal as all players will take damage throughout the fight. Other players will need to make use of their defensive cooldowns when appropriate to help the healers out. This is especially true for the rail shot combo.


Foreman Crusher

Have 1 tank take the boss and another tank pick up the Gamoreans. Simply AoE the Gamoreans down next to the boss. More Gamorean adds will spawn throughout the fight, just pick them up and AoE them down each time. These actually hit fairly hard and can stun players so you don't want them running loose. You could just mostly ignore the adds and let the tank and incidental AoE slowly kill them.

The boss will frequently toss rocks at random players. You can avoid these by moving out of the target circle on the ground; however on hardmode it is difficult to move out in time unless you are already moving (feels buggy as you still suffer damage when it looks like you ran out in plenty of time). The rocks do massive damage, but nothing that can't be healed through. On nightmare, the rocks do 13-15k damage.

The boss occasionally does a stomp that will hit the entire group and knock them into the air a short distance. This does a moderate amount of damage, but can be fatal in combination with damage from the Rock Throw (use defensive cooldowns and medpacks).

Finally, the boss has a Frenzy ability which will cause him to be immune to taunts and deal massive damage to the tank and any players near the tank. To deal with this damage, the tank needs to rotate a cooldown for each one. Frenzy occurs on roughly a minute timer. Note that aggro will reset after this ends, so be ready to taunt the boss back if he goes for a dps player.


G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator

This is another puzzle boss. The boss starts off with 10 stacks of his Exotech Armor and is immune to damage. To break his armor you need to fire the laser above his starting location by solving the puzzle. To solve the puzzle, you need to move the green pieces to form a tower by clicking on the control panels. This puzzle works like Towers of Hanoi -- you cannot place a larger piece onto a smaller piece and you can only pick up 1 piece at a time. You "pick up" a piece by clicking the control panel in front of it. This moves the piece to the big center screen. The next panel you click will drop that piece in that location.

Facing the screens and the boss, there are 3 lasers -- we'll call them Left, Middle, and Right. When the encounter starts, you have the I piece at the Left, the II piece at the Middle, and the III piece at the Right. You want to stack all the pieces on the Right in the proper order with III on the bottom, II in the middle, and I on top. Doing so will allow you to fire the laser. You cannot fire the same laser twice in a row, so you will have to solve the puzzle repeatedly in a different location throughout the fight.

For the first laser, the click order would be Middle, Right, Left, Right.
For the next laser, the order would be Right, Left, Right, Middle, Left, Middle, Right, Left, Middle, Right, Middle, Left, Right, Left.
This order will fire the left laser. If you wanted to fire the middle laser instead for some reason, the strategy is similar, just drop the I piece in the middle to start. Basically, wherever you drop the I piece when starting a new puzzle is where the next laser will end up firing.

You will need to hit the boss with the lasers throughout the fight to keep his armor buff off and make him vulnerable to damage. Generally the fastest way is to have 3 people up top -- 1 for each panel. Recommend the player at the middle panel be a healer and the other 2 be ranged dps. You'll need to solve the puzzle fairly quickly to beat the enrage timer.

The boss will need to be tanked once the first laser hits him. The tank will need to move the boss under the next laser each time. The tank and melee dps need to be careful not to stand where the laser will hit, as it will do massive damage. The boss will stack an armor reducing debuff on the tank, so you should swap tanks on occasion to negate this.

The boss will also frequently toss a sticky bomb on a random player, indicated by the red flashing dot. After a few seconds, the bomb explodes and deals heavy damage and knockback to nearby players. Players should move away from the group if they are targeted by this. It is somewhat hard to see, especially if focused on the puzzle, so be aware (it does have a beeping sound to alert you as well).

Shortly after you fire a laser, the boss will summon many proximity mines and 3 stun droids. The stun droids spawn near the boss (1 under each laser) and should be killed quickly, as they will chain stuns on random nearby players. The proximity mines will explode for moderate damage when players move near them. When they get the chance, players working the puzzle up top should detonate any mines that are in the way to keep the puzzle area clear. The healer can simply heal through this damage. The mines are only a threat in combination with damage from the sticky bombs. On hardmode, detonating a mine will place a stacking damage-over-time effect on the player, so players should only pop 1 mine at a time, waiting for the DoT to fall off before hitting another. It's also possible to use knockbacks to push the mines out of the way.

On hardmode, the boss gains a stacking Power buff over time that increases his damage. The lasers now have different functions -- the Left laser will remove the Power and Armor buffs from the boss and prevent them from stacking for 20s, the Middle laser will remove the Armor buff from the boss and destroy all the mines and stun droids, the Right laser will remove the Armor buff from the boss and make the boss vulnerable to damage for 20s. We simply alternated between the Right and Left lasers, making sure all dps focuses hard on the boss when his armor is melted from the Right laser (he turns red while vulnerable). The mines and stun droids can easily be dealt with without having to fire the Middle laser.


Karagga the Unyielding

Abilities:

Burning Oil -- Karagga drops a patch of oil on the tank, then ignites it. The burning oil deals heavy elemental damage to anyone standing in it. These remain for the entire fight, so it is important to position Karagga so that the burning oil patches don't cover the whole room.

Exhaust -- Karagga occasionaly vents fire in a cone behind him dealing 2-3k elemental damage every second to players caught in it. This is avoided by never standing behind the boss.

Missile Barrage -- Karagga will occasionally launch a salvo of missiles, hitting the entire raid for 4-5k damage.

Tunneling Drill -- Karagga frequently sends spikes up through the ground, hitting several players. These do about 3k damage and interrupt casting.

Gravity Well -- Karagga creates a gravity well on a player, rooting that player in place and yanking other players to the center of the well. Players need to move out of the gravity well, as they will take damage every second. After a few seconds, the gravity well explodes dealing heavy damage to anyone still inside. The player that gets rooted in place cannot avoid this damage. Sometimes this ability seems to hit 2 players.

Mouse Droids -- Karagga will summon a swarm of mouse droids. These will chase random players and explode on them, dealing ~5k damage each. They have ~4500 health and count as standard enemies, so can easily be snared, rooted, stunned, etc. Karagga spawns these every minute, although the first wave comes out a little early, at ~37s from the start. We timed Death From Above and Orbital Strikes to kill them all easily. It's essential to control these, as multiple droids hitting the same person can easily cause a death with all the other random damage happening. On hardmode, the droids have a little more health.

Strategy:

The tank's job here is to move Karagga such that the Burning Oil remains on the edges of the room and away from players as much as possible. It's also important to keep the boss turned towards the group so that the exhaust flames that pour out the back do not hit anyone. Other players should not stand near the tank, since Karagga will dump the Burning Oil on that spot and getting rooted there from a Gravity Well will cause a death. As the fight continues, more and more of the room will be covered with the Burning Oil, so positioning will become more difficult. Karagga also sometimes likes to randomly re-position himself even when the tank isn't moving, so all players simply need to be aware of where they are standing at all times.

Healers will have a tough job in this fight. There is a lot of random damage going out and the Tunneling Spikes cause frequent interruptions. Just do your best to heal the lowest health players first and use your cooldowns if you start falling behind on heals. Other players should be using their defensive cooldowns and medpacks when appropriate to help the healers out.

On hardmode, this fight is identical to normal except Karagga has more health and all his abilities deal a bit more damage. The main difficulty here is beating the enrage timer -- it is tight enough that you cannot have someone die to mistakes during the fight.

[turlockmike]

This is an excellet guide. Thank you for the information

[ghostkitteh]

Very nice guide. Now I just need to find a guild to do ops with >.>

[Deleted]

For EV pillars we have south side always solve first (north can still rotate just not solve) has not bugged on us yet on any difficulty.

Players in Soa Mind Traps will not die when you enter the transition, they will reappear once you kill the first Mind Trap in P3.

Foreman crusher really doesn't need 2 tanks, just have a dps aoe taunt the adds and aoe them down. Also, I think you have longer to move out of the rocks the further away from the boss you are, can't confirm that though as they're a little random.

[viciouss]

Very nice guide. Now I just need to find a guild to do ops with >.>

Pretty much this I am one of a whopping 3 50's in my guild with all the item mods from dailies

[Deleted]

thank you very much for the writeup. What level of equipment should we shoot for before starting the normal modes?

[leetsushi]

thank you very much for the writeup. What level of equipment should we shoot for before starting the normal modes?

You don't really even need much heroic gear, EV normal is a very finely tuned entry raid for new 50s.

[ghostkitteh]

Doing Gharj in a 16 man HM pug right now. The lava flows (lava falling from the top of the cave) do extra damage. Just figured you might want to add that in.

[Ixator]

On Karagga I suggest melee bunches up on his side, makes it really easy since u dont have to worry about the fire. NMM oneshot ftw.

[Jalek]

Thanks, I tried KP yesterday and we had issues on G4-B3 (4th boss) with people getting stunned (mostly me as a healer which sucked) and the knockback. Now I know how the knockback works we shouldn't have an issue.

It was great trying new content and trying to work it out ourselves with no addons (though healing without knowing stacks of kolto probe sucked).

I can't believe people complain about raiding in SWTOR. Seems great so far and lots of different unique boss abilities and solutions (eg puzzle bosses).

[Denae]

thank you very much for the writeup. What level of equipment should we shoot for before starting the normal modes?

You can start normal mode EV and Karagga's right away. The best way to get some decent gear quickly is to just do the daily heroics on Belsavis and Ilum. Doing all 4 will get you purple armoring, mod, and enhancement. Orange gear with all purple mods is often better than Tionese stuff. From the daily commendations you can buy tionese level hilts/barrels for your weapons (and if you are a tank, the armoring is worth it as well).

Doing Gharj in a 16 man HM pug right now. The lava flows (lava falling from the top of the cave) do extra damage. Just figured you might want to add that in.

Hmmm, I'll add that in. I guess we never got hit by those.

[Arngrim310]

thank you very much for the writeup. What level of equipment should we shoot for before starting the normal modes?

Most of our raid is in at least 1/2 epic gear whether it be pvp or pve HM flashpoint stuff and we 7 manned it this weekend due to a no show on our first guild attempt. So yeah, doable in all blues Im sure.

[Denae]

Updated for 1.1.2

[Deleted]

Players that were in a Mind Trap will be freed automatically when the transition begins.

Slightly incorrect, freed when the first Mind Trap of P3 is killed ^^

[Denae]

Slightly incorrect, freed when the first Mind Trap of P3 is killed ^^

It's one reason I updated it. Read your patch notes -- "Soa now frees all players in mind traps before transitioning to his platform phase. Players will no longer be stuck in mind traps during the platforming sequence as a result."

[Deleted]

will this be updated for 1.2 and if needed 1.3?