Yesterday having to start over because of weekly reset we encountered a bug that caused us to wipe.

Our team always groups up with the merc healer and operative healer(me) standing outside to take aggro from the mobs that spawn by shooting them. We always take turns pulling the exploding mob to us and guiding it away from the group.

Yesterday though there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the merc and me and we both shot at the mob causing it to nearly instant warp to the tanks and start its explosion on top of them.

Has anyone else had this before?

Yesterday having to start over because of weekly reset we encountered a bug that caused us to wipe.

Our team always groups up with the merc healer and operative healer(me) standing outside to take aggro from the mobs that spawn by shooting them. We always take turns pulling the exploding mob to us and guiding it away from the group.

Yesterday though there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the merc and me and we both shot at the mob causing it to nearly instant warp to the tanks and start its explosion on top of them.

 

Has anyone else had this before?

I don't think the droids follow any reasonable threat mechanic, not even on HM. Gunning them CAN help, but it necessarily won't. At least that's how I've understood it. They're immune to taunts as well, and mobs or bosses with that buff will not stick to highest threat. (Think Heirad and Bonethrasher)

Yesterday having to start over because of weekly reset we encountered a bug that caused us to wipe.

Our team always groups up with the merc healer and operative healer(me) standing outside to take aggro from the mobs that spawn by shooting them. We always take turns pulling the exploding mob to us and guiding it away from the group.

Yesterday though there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the merc and me and we both shot at the mob causing it to nearly instant warp to the tanks and start its explosion on top of them.

 

Has anyone else had this before?

The normal behavior on nightmare is for the droid to leap to someone. In this case, it happened to be targeting the tank. You and the merc apparently didn't successfully gain aggro on it that time (nothing to do with both hitting it I imagine). Either you both weren't quick enough, or it's just that gaining aggro on the droids is a bit finicky.

The normal behavior on nightmare is for the droid to leap to someone. In this case, it happened to be targeting the tank. You and the merc apparently didn't successfully gain aggro on it that time (nothing to do with both hitting it I imagine). Either you both weren't quick enough, or it's just that gaining aggro on the droids is a bit finicky.

Well the thing is that we both shot the mobs a few times (yesyes bad coordination ^^). And every time we shot it together which happened about 2-3 times this event occurred. It has never occurred when only one of us shoots it. If only one shoots it we've never had a problem before.

It is most definitely working as intended. The droids have a random initial agro table, which you may alter the moment it lands, and before they get a chance to leap. However, it may not guarantee agro, especially to the healers, mostly because the droids have to take some damage to alter their target, and as a healer there's a high possibility of missing the shots, due to lacking accuracy.

When I am on my healer, I have to sit there at the spawn point and just continue stabbing / shooting it till the droid is agro'ed onto me, mostly because of the high miss chance (no accuracy on healing gear).

If this is something you are trying to avoid, and you do not want the droids to leap to the tank the ideal way to do it would be to get one of the DPS on the droid duty.

However, personally, I don't think it should be required because even if the droids leap to the tanks, they have more than enough time to coordinate their movements together and walk out of the red circle without spreading far from Nefra, and still share the damage (avoiding a wipe).

I hope this helps.

Do keep in mind, sometimes (if the droid is off-timing) it can practically insta-leap the moment it lands, which means that you will not have a big window of opportunity to alter it's agro table.

You can control the vast majority of the droids by just doing a simple auto attack on them when they spawn, if you are the only one that attacks them they will come to you, even if they already leapt another target (Nightmare Mechanic). The only droids which you cannot control are the droids that goes for tanks, I have not done any advanced research on this since we normally clear this boss on 1-2 tries and I thus never got the time, but it might have something to do with taunts/self-heals/saber reflect, regardless, if they are going for a tank, I have never been able to pull it off them.

We practise this tactic both on 8man and 16man with one person outside doing an auto attack on the droid and thus getting it to them, it does make everything much easier since you don't have to move.

You can control the vast majority of the droids by just doing a simple auto attack on them when they spawn, if you are the only one that attacks them they will come to you, even if they already leapt another target (Nightmare Mechanic). The only droids which you cannot control are the droids that goes for tanks, I have not done any advanced research on this since we normally clear this boss on 1-2 tries and I thus never got the time, but it might have something to do with taunts/self-heals/saber reflect, regardless, if they are going for a tank, I have never been able to pull it off them.

 

We practise this tactic both on 8man and 16man with one person outside doing an auto attack on the droid and thus getting it to them, it does make everything much easier since you don't have to move.

Yeah this is the normal behavior, the dps left outside the group can pull with any damage unless it fixates on tanks, then theres nothing you can do, its just gonna go to them. It usually happens once or twice a pull, the tanks just have to move together out of it.

Yeah this is the normal behavior, the dps left outside the group can pull with any damage unless it fixates on tanks, then theres nothing you can do, its just gonna go to them. It usually happens once or twice a pull, the tanks just have to move together out of it.

There tends to be another add spawning faster than normal after the one that goes on the tanks spawns, pretty annoying.

There tends to be another add spawning faster than normal after the one that goes on the tanks spawns, pretty annoying.

This exactly.

Ah so it's normal that some are bound to jump for the tanks. Good to know.

I don't think the droids follow any reasonable threat mechanic, not even on HM. Gunning them CAN help, but it necessarily won't. At least that's how I've understood it. They're immune to taunts as well, and mobs or bosses with that buff will not stick to highest threat. (Think Heirad and Bonethrasher)

That isn't necessarily true. The untauntable adds at the end of the warlords fight will stick to highest threat.

That isn't necessarily true. The untauntable adds at the end of the warlords fight will stick to highest threat.

Ah, good to know, hadn't paid enough attention to notice. Though Horic still shoots Spray and Pray at random targets, right? And doesn't Vilus stealth-strike randomly as well?

Ah, good to know, hadn't paid enough attention to notice. Though Horic still shoots Spray and Pray at random targets, right? And doesn't Vilus stealth-strike randomly as well?

Yeah those ones are true, they have built in random targeting. If you watch their target-of-target really carefully, you'll see them turn to the person with highest threat before continuing their trolling. Heirad does something similar too.

The question for me is why would you want to control the droids? In case you have a good setup for nim you have 3 melees (2 tanks + 1 maro) and 5 ranged ( 2 healers 3 dds). Ranges can be spread so that the droid aoe explosion would only effect 1 person that is required to run therefore dps loss for 1 person. The marauder can position himself so that the aoe explosion wont effect him in case the droid targets the tanks and in case the droid targets the mara the tank wont need to run. Therefore only dps loss of 1 person ( 2 tanks dps is not really important). Basically the more often the tanks have to run the easier the fight. But your raid kinda try to avoid that the tanks get the droids (for whatever reason).

The Droid leaps and when he lands you still have 3! second to get out which is possible for any class even for classes without a run speed increase. Furthermore as a tank especially this fight is not really hard. Dodging the droids shouldnt be a problem for the tanks. What else they have to do? Looking for their stacks so the taunt at the right time and looking out for the stacks on Nefra to call out when the raid has to get together so the tanks turn nefra around for her Nightmare twin strike.

If your tanks cant handle that Draxus and Grob'thok will be too hard for them. So get them used to have more tasks and more challenges so they can improve.

Furthermore the healers who try to aggro the droids waste 1 or 2 gcds for attacking the droid. Instead they should dmg the boss or heal the tanks way more effort than damaging a target which will explode in 3 seconds. Furthermore tha adds often dont go to the one's shooting at them, therefore all the hps and dps loss was in vain.

However its your tactic and whether you want to change it or not is your choice. I am just trying to give you my thoughts on your tactics. Changing it does not always mean an improvement ( for example if you have ppl who cant move or who have slow pc's).

Well I prefer this tactic of "pulling" the majority of the droids as itäs so easy (one gcd) and improved the overall damage as well as healing of the group since it's only one person that ever has to move and he knows it beforehand and can use roll or something. So I disagree when you say that it's ineffective, I think that if someone would do the math, they would come to the conclusion that having one person "pulling" the droid and then moving "Saves" more DPS/HPS than having the droid jump on someone random and possibly having 2-3 ppl moving.

As you say there are moments where the droid don't go for the person shooting it, but those cases are very rare and it's will always be tanks, as explained before in this thread, so it's easily controllable. I think that your tactic would work as well for the vast majority o the group doing Nightmare, however having a person pulling the adds makes it easier and adds more control, which is always preferable.

The question for me is why would you want to control the droids? In case you have a good setup for nim you have 3 melees (2 tanks + 1 maro) and 5 ranged ( 2 healers 3 dds). Ranges can be spread so that the droid aoe explosion would only effect 1 person that is required to run therefore dps loss for 1 person. The marauder can position himself so that the aoe explosion wont effect him in case the droid targets the tanks and in case the droid targets the mara the tank wont need to run. Therefore only dps loss of 1 person ( 2 tanks dps is not really important). Basically the more often the tanks have to run the easier the fight. But your raid kinda try to avoid that the tanks get the droids (for whatever reason).

 

First off, we're 16M and we run with about 3 Melee DPS the rest ranged (mostly mercs and sorcs).

Second, we let the healers control the droids since that is even less of a DPS loss and the healing isn't hard on the first boss.

Yes why would we not want the tanks to get the droid

 

The Droid leaps and when he lands you still have 3! second to get out which is possible for any class even for classes without a run speed increase. Furthermore as a tank especially this fight is not really hard. Dodging the droids shouldnt be a problem for the tanks. What else they have to do? Looking for their stacks so the taunt at the right time and looking out for the stacks on Nefra to call out when the raid has to get together so the tanks turn nefra around for her Nightmare twin strike.

 

We just weren't expecting it because for some reason in previous runs it hadn't happened before, maybe THAT was the bug without us knowing it. But it's ok now that we know the tanks get them automatically sometimes. They're prepared now and can indeed run out without a problem.

 

If your tanks cant handle that Draxus and Grob'thok will be too hard for them. So get them used to have more tasks and more challenges so they can improve.

Why so aggressive mate? When did I say our tanks are not capable.

 

Furthermore the healers who try to aggro the droids waste 1 or 2 gcds for attacking the droid. Instead they should dmg the boss or heal the tanks way more effort than damaging a target which will explode in 3 seconds. Furthermore tha adds often dont go to the one's shooting at them, therefore all the hps and dps loss was in vain.

 

Isn't a DPS attacking the droids more DPS loss than a healer attacking it? And as I said healing is far from a problem.

 

However its your tactic and whether you want to change it or not is your choice. I am just trying to give you my thoughts on your tactics. Changing it does not always mean an improvement ( for example if you have ppl who cant move or who have slow pc's).

Ok. I already stated earlier in the thread that I appreciated the answers and it gave me a new outlook on the fight which will make it even easier than it already was. Thanks for the post though.

Answers in red

And indeed, what Rikachu said above me.

Correct me if I am wrong but every third droid keeps focusing the tank no matter what. Last time I did 20k dmg to it with no result of changing targets. Every fourth droid spawns very fast after the tank one too.

That makes me think the fight is rather staged like Draxus. Something like stage 1 : droid dot and nightmare cleave dont allign; stage 2 droid and dot allign, stage 3 droid jumps to tank and dot is casted at the same time plus second droid appearing few seconds later... I wonder if there is a moment where we have the nigtmare 15 stack mechanic and a droid acting together.

A side question: When is the date the additional nightmare buff ends?