Star Wars: The Old Republic Operation Experiences

Written by Kevin Chow Saturday, 25 February 2012 06:00

This article is about my experiences with operations (raids) in Star Wars: The Old Republic. For those who don’t know, there are currently two operations available: Karagga’s Palace and The Eternity Vault. They both have five bosses each. Operations can be run as either 8-man or 16-man groups. There is a one week lockout for each operation. However, normal mode is on a separate lockout than hard and nightmare modes.

I play a Sith Marauder and have been through both operations multiple times. For Karagga’s Palace, I have been through normal and hard modes, and was unsuccessful on nightmare mode. For Eternity Vault, I have been through normal, hard, and nightmare modes, with the exception of Soa (the last boss). For Soa, I have only beaten him on hard mode so far.

Karagga’s Palace

I feel that this operation was really well done. Going through the story was almost like being in Return of the Jedi. Compared to Eternity Vault, Karagga’s Palace had minimal bugs and was pretty easy on normal mode. Some trash packs were harder than some of the bosses in there.

Bonethrasher

This boss was pretty easy on normal. For hard mode, it took a few tries, but after everyone got the hang of it, we pretty much always one shot him. On Nightmare mode, however, his AoE swipe ability does too much damage for some people and can even one shot them. Being a melee class for this fight is kind of a pain because I always have to watch what way he is facing. Without target of target frames, it is hard to tell who the boss is targeting. Sometimes when I Force Charge, it puts me in front of the boss even though I was behind him. I got punted into the acid once because of this.

Jarg & Sorno

These two actually argue with each other during the fight, which is hilarious. It’s a pretty easy fight, but on hard mode, Unload does a lot more damage and needs to be interrupted. We died the first time because we normally ignore it on normal mode. I usually get assigned to Sorno because Marauders have a short cooldown on interrupts and can Force Charge. It’s generally a pretty fun fight, but I have to make sure I at least have one rage for interrupts. 

Foreman Crusher

Getting to this boss was more trouble than the boss himself. Some of the trash packs were annoying until we started going around them. For the boss, the first time we did this we had several people get locked outside his room because right when the encounter starts, a force field comes on at the entrance to prevent people from running away. As for the boss himself, he was pretty easy on normal and hard modes. It didn’t really feel like there was much of a difference. It can get annoying at times when I have to chase the boss during frenzy, but there are usually adds out during that time.

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator

This boss was really interesting, especially on hard mode. The boss has a lot of armor and health and pretty much can’t be killed without going through the mechanics of the encounter. To make him lose his armor buff, a few people have to stay on the platform and play a mini-game similar to Tower of Hanoi. We pretty much have ranged dps do this because they can shoot the boss while his armor is gone. It’s pretty straightforward on normal mode. On hard mode, it was more complicated, but also more fun. The boss gets more types of buffs and it has to be moved to the correct positions for the people who are doing the mini-game to get the buffs off. After getting used to it, it seems easy. I have yet to try it on nightmare mode, but so far, this is the only boss that has some major mechanic changes between difficulty modes.

Karagga the Unyielding

First time with this boss was a nice learning experience. Naturally the dps stood behind him because what can go wrong, right? Well, we soon learned that Karagga ate a lot of chili and fire comes out of from behind. As a melee class, the only safe spots to stand are to his sides. It was a pretty healing intensive fight because some of the damage is unavoidable, but it turned out to be easy after people pay attention to where they are standing. This is another boss that didn’t seem to have many differences between normal and hard modes. Maybe it was different to healers, but as a Marauder, it felt the same. We were able to one shot him with a very clean attempt on our first hard mode try.