Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Companions are better than actual players?

Flashpoint: Mandalorian Raiders (Normal Mode Level 21-25)
Character: Level 24 Operative (Healer)

So, during the last Double XP Weekend, I got bitten by the "New Toon Bug" and rolled an Imperial Agent. (The Agent/Smuggler buff is the only one I don't have in my Legacy, since for whatever reason I have never had the desire to play one.) So I rolled an Agent, decided to go the Operative Advanced Class route, since I already have an Assassin Tank and Mercenary DPS, so rolling an imperial healer would complete my Role Trilogy for that faction. (I already have a Vanguard Tank, Sage Healer and Sentinel DPS on the republic side, so it seemed like an obvious choice.)

ANYWAY - I have thus far, done most of my Operative's leveling through Group Finder Flashpoints and PvP, and simply keeping up with my class story in between so I don't outlevel it too terribly much.

On this particular occasion, I queued in the Group Finder for a Flashpoint. It popped pretty quickly and I got into a Mandalorian Raiders at level 24. There was a level 26 Sorcerer DPS and I honestly do not recall the level/class of the other dps or the tank, because the other dps never actually entered the flashpoint so after about 10 minutes we vote-kicked him, and right before we pulled the first boss "Braxx the Bloodhound" our tank DC'd. We waited about another 10 minutes for him to come back, but he never did, so we vote-kicked him also. 

I put our group back into the Group Finder to attempt to find replacements, but in the meantime, the Sorc pulled out his DPS companion, and I pulled out Kaliyo and put her in tank stance. Then we decided to 2-man it with companions and pulled Braxx.

WOW was I busy in that fight! I set the Sorc's companion as my Focus Target, and was concentrating on healing myself, the sorc, his companion, my companion, as well as controlling Kaliyo to make sure she stayed on Braxx, and helping as much as I could to contribute to DPS'ing the two Sulky Hounds. We made it through the fight without either of us, or our companions dying, it just took a little while. 

Still no replacements, so we decided to keep going. Through careful use of CC's and companion targeting, we made it through the trash fairly easily, and Boarding Party didn't pose too much of a challenge as we just simply focus targeted them one at a time, and I kept my HoTs going for the majority of the heals.

Heading into the last room... we are almost finished!!!! YAY! We kill the turrets outside the last room, and are preparing to pull Mavrix Varad, when OMG REPLACEMENTS HAVE BEEN FOUND!!!! We get a notice that a tank and another dps have joined our team, and our companions automatically were dismissed. So, we wait for the two new players to show up, and pull the boss.

We wiped on the third platform.

One turret was still up on the first platform when Varad made his first jump... BOTH of them were still up on the second platform when he jumped to the third, because the Sorc stayed at the first one to polish off the remaining turret by himself. So we had FOUR turrets shooting us by the time he jumped to the third platform. I realized, that the tank was staying focused on Varad the whole time and wasn't assisting with the turrets at all. I have tanked it in normal and hard mode on both my Assassin and Vanguard many times, and really folks, it's not that hard.... But then I realized that the reason the tank was focusing on Varad, was because the replacement dps was ALSO focused on him, ignoring the turrets entirely. So the tank had no choice, because if he stopped focusing on the boss, the dps would aggro him and die. So we only had one dps actually attacking the turrets.

I explained this to the replacement dps after we wiped, and we went back in and tried again, this time with success.

I just found it funny, that while 2-manning the flashpoint with companions, we didn't die once. But once we had a full 4-man team? We immediately wipe.

Moral of the story? Sometimes less is more.

Less is more... Unless you're referring to the rear bumper of a Female Body Type 4.

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