Hard mode Flashpoint Compendium

[Duroth]

Welcome to the Hard Mode Flashpoints Compendium! I will update this as soon as I get around doing the different instances, so it might take a little time until it's complete - so bare with me, and please chip in if you got any tactics you feel like sharing!

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INDEX:

1. Black Talon
2. Boarding Party
3. The Foundry
4. Directive 7
5. The Battle of Ilum
6. The False Emperor

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Final boss of each flashpoint gives a Columi Tier Token.

Boarding Party - Columi Gloves
False Emperor - Columi Chest
Directive 7 - Columi Pants
Foundry - Columi Boots
Black Talon - Columi Bracers
Battle for Ilum - Columi Off-Hand

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Thanks goes to:

Luz (for being the patient tank that he is!).
Delia (Battle of Ilum Flashpoint and pointing out the last boss' drops).
Vexx (for fixing some torhead links!)

[Duroth]

Black Talon

- GRX-5 Sabotage Bot (dark side choice)

Tactic: Fairly simple boss. Spawns smaller droids that explode after 10 seconds. Dps should focus on single targeting the boss down. Healing aggro should suffice to get the small adds to focus the healer. Use this to your advantage, and kite the adds away from the tank and dps, so that nobody gets hit by the explosion.

Loot: Tionese Enforcer's Belt

- Sergeant Boran (light side choice)

Tactic: Might be a bit of a challenge if you just dinged 50 and are running it for the first time. He has 3 adds that are preferred to kill before you go on the boss. Especially the healer. Focus them one and one down, and finish off the boss.

Loot: Tionese Combat Medic's Belt

- Commander Ghulil

Tactic:

Boss with two adds. Kill the adds first, then focus on the boss. He drops some AoE fire bombs (interruptable, thanks xeroph34r) on the ground, be sure to move out of those.

Loot: Energized Combat Medic's Legplates

- GXR-7 Command Droid (bonus quest boss, spawns on completion of Stage 3)

Tactic: Easy boss if you have a couple of interrupters in your group. All his abilities are interruptable. Does a knockback to the tank aswell, so if you're a tank, it's recommended to tank him against a wall / corner.

Loot: Earpiece with +Cunning (torhead is being a b*tch, so can't find it.)

- Yadira Ban (final boss)

Tactic: Tentacle jedi lady. main ability to keep in the back of your mind is her pull + shockwave. She pulls all 4 to her, and then starts casting a lethal AoE ability. The debuff is cleansable, but if you start running right away, you won't have a problem with it. Right after the shockwave goes off, she charges a random person, mid damage, easily healable.

Loot: Schematic: Tionese Enforcer's Implant (Biochem schematic), Unassembled Columi Wargrade Tech Bracers, Biometric Crystal Alloy (crafting BoP material)

[Duroth]

- HXI-54 Juggernaught

Tactic: Creates lightning to 3 out of the 4 reactors around him (hurts quite much, don't stand in it). Randomly throws people around. Puts a lightning effect on the ground, move away form it.

Loot:

Relic

- Sakan Do'Nair

Tactic: Boss with two healer adds, CC'able. Focus down the healers first, and then just dps the boss. (nothing special comes to mind)

Loot:

- Chief Engineer Kels (Bonus boss)

Tactic: Boss with two droid adds. not CC'able. Under no circumstances should you kill the engineer first (droids enrage and go crazy monkey on your party). activates 3 out of 4 reactors at random. DO not stand in rage of them, you will be interrupted, and take some damage. Its healable, but not if the whole party takes 3 hits every time. So keep your eyes open, and run to the safe reactor. Chief also cast a shield on him and one of the droids, so just focus the one without the shield (you might be required to switch every now and then). Kill the adds, and finish off the boss.

- Commander Jorland (guessing bugged / overtuned)

Tactic (clever use of game mechanics):
NOTE: If you wipe on this boss, you will bug the chest, and you will recieve no loot for killing him! This is one hard nut. Casts grenades on anyone (except tank) that is within 30 meters of him, its about 8k per hit, and he hits each target 3 times. SO what we do, is the following; healer (me) pull initial aggro on the boss (35 meter ability), where the tank charges in, and tanks the Commander. I ran away out of sight of both adds, and waited for them to come back to the stairs, so we could DPS them. Tank was standing with his back to me, so that i could heal him without being in range of grenades. Focused the healer down first, then the add with the shield. at approx 10%, everyone charged in and just nuked the commander, just in time to kill him before we all died in a rain of grenades.

[Duroth]

I haven't done The FOundry on Hard yet, so i will write the strats when I get around to do it!

[Duroth]

I haven't done this one either on Hard yet, so i will write the strats when I get around to do it!

[Duroth]

Difficulty: Moderate
Credits goes to Delia for tactics!

- Gark the Indomitable

Difficulty: Very Easy
Grak is a very easy boss, but I'll go over his mechanics anyway. Firstly, have your tank aim him away from your group, as he has a frontal cone AoE. Second concern is the adds he spawns, they are weak, and don't hit terribly hard, but shouldn't be allowed to stack up, make sure DPS are killing them. Finally he has 2 not-so-worrisome mechanics, the first being that he will knockback the tank on occasion, and the second being that he will randomly stun players for a short duration.

- Velasu Graege and Drinda-Zel

Difficulty: Easy
Velasu stands with his Jedi partner Drinda-Zel, near the force shield leading into the mines. Drinda is fairly weak has few mechanics, and so should be killed first, also killing Velasu second postpones the most annoying mechanic of this fight (the turrets) until later.

Graege knocks melee targets away every 15 seconds or so, just cause we all know bosses like to annoy melee, he also occasionally stuns ranged. Other than that he just spams snipe, which can be interrupted. After a short time, Graege will call four turrets to aid him, they spawn continuously on top of one another until Graege is defeated. You can either heal through the increasing damage, and burn Graege quickly, or turn and burn the turrets whenever they spawn, both tactics are viable.

- Crystal Cutter Droid

Difficulty: Very Easy
Crystal Cutter droid cannot be interrupted or crowd controlled, nor can his elite friend. Kill the elite (gold) droid first, then burn the Crystal cutter.

- Krel Thak

Difficulty: Hard
Krel Thak is quite hard not due to the boss himself, but rather due to his adds. Every 30 seconds Krel will flashbang the entire party (this can be avoided with anti-CC abilities or broken using the PvP CC break), and summon 4 adds. They are normal mobs and have little health, but hit ridiculously hard, these should be stunned if possible and dealt with quickly, if at all possible always have some kind of cooldown ready for this phase.

For a short time after summoning adds, Krel will have a proximity probe buff, making any melee attacks cause damage to the attacker and knock them back, as such melee should avoid using AoE attacks to kill his adds.

Krel has a fairly strict enrage, so while his adds take priority, make sure that your DPS switch quickly once they are dead.

- Guid Patriarch (Bonus Boss)

Difficulty: Very Easy
The patriarch only had 1 mechanic, he will periodically use "rampage" which causes crystals to fall from the ceiling, avoid these crystals, and just burn the patriarch. The only real worry in this fight is his enrage, so make sure your DPS can do half decent damage.

- Darth Seravin and Queneth Li (Final Boss)

Difficulty: Moderate
Kill Queneth first in this encounter as she breaks CC constantly if you try to control her. If left alone she will heal both herself and Seravin making it difficult to beat the enrage timer. Interrupt as many of Queneth's heals as possible making doubly sure to catch Salvation as it is the most significant of her heals (on a 30 second CD).

Once Queneth is out of the picture, you can focus attention of Seravin. He casts DoTs on his primary target, and throws crystals at random targets, neither of which can be prevented, and must be healed through, he also occasionally will stun his primary target, which again cannot be prevented. On the interrupt side of things, he uses 2 attacks that can and should be stopped to help reduce damage; namely Dark Blast (single target attack aimed at the tank) and Charged Explosion (large damage AoE), with Charged Explosion interrupts taking priority.

There is quite a lot of damage in this fight, but other than interrupts the mechanics are pretty much non-existant.

Tier Loot: Columi Off-Hand Token

[Duroth]

- Tregg the Destroyer (Champion (mini boss))

Tactic:

Has a nasty whirlwind, starts moving real slow right before he casts it it seems.

- Jindo Krey

Tactic: Powertech-kind-of-boss. Consists of two phases:

Phase 1: His ship will go close, and shoot missiles at random targeted people. Aquires "Target Lock", which increases the damage the rockets do by 100% per stack. You reset this by clicking the turret closest to the ship. When trying to click the console, he will grip that player towards him, interrupting the activate. So it's best to have 2 people on clicking. When you hit the ship, he will bubble, and you need to burst him down to get rid of the shield. WHen he is shielded however, the ship will fire AoE targeted missiles at the ground. Easily avoidable. Interrupt "Flame Sweep"

Phase 2: Same as phase 1, without the missiles (both on persons and AoE) (faceroll phase)

Loot: Energized Stalker's Handwraps

- Prototype A-14 and B-16 (Champion (mini boss))

Tactic: Two Droids. Only one of them are "active" at one time. The "passive" one whill have a blue aura around him (not really shure what the aura does), but he does cast a ranged attack that gives a stacking +dmg taken buff. We tank them a fair bit apart, so that he spell takes longer to reach us, thus less stacks being able to get applied. Healers: +3 stacks on tank and you should begin to worry.

- HK-47

Tactic: Enrage timer: about 2 min 40 seconds (as we could tell) Nasty frontal attack, called "Burst", not interruptable, and hits all in a cone in front of him. (Make tank turn him away form group. Casts "Snipe" at a random target (doesn't seem to be targeting healer or tank) easily healeable. Turrets spawn, drop the bomb AoE on them to get the shields off. (after that we just ignored the turrets and focused the boss.) Vanishes, gets visible again for a very short duration, and goes invisible again. You have to use AoE to get him out of stealth, but use it at the right time. that means when he goes invisible the second time. Bounty hunter's "Stealth Scan" might work to get him visible.

Loot: Hatred

- Chondrus Berani (Champion (mini boss))

Nothing Special.

- Sith Entity (Bonus boss)

Tactic: Dps race. Interrupt his Force lightning. Does a knockback to melee, doesn't hit for that much. (enrage is a different story all together.) Every now and then he splits into 3 strong mobs. gather them up with interrupts and knockbacks, and AoE them down. (They heal, so be sure to interrupt those, to save time.)

[Loot] Willpower implant.

- Darth Malgus (Final Boss)

Tactic: Fairly easy boss. Does a mean knockback, so the best tactic is to hug the walls at the stairs. Ranged on one side, melee on the other. Got a couple of abilities you need to watch out for. The biggest threat is the "Unlimited Power". This HAS to be interrupted, or it's almost a certain wipe. "Force Leap" - jumps towards someone, knocking them back. does ~1800 dmg on heavy armor (bounty hunter merc). "Doubt" - makes everyone stunned, and you must face Malgus by yourself. Healers, take a note of who will be targeted, and top them off. He doesnt do that much dmg, but if someone's at 50% health, it might get tricky. At 30k HP he goes immune, and start casting Force lightning. You have to knock him into oblivion to end the encounter, so at ~40k hp, the tank should position him so that 2x knockbacks (the first knock removes his immunity to knockback) sends him flying. The easiest is to just pull him out on either left or right side, adn do 2 knockbacks.

Loot: Rendili Fireball (Mount)
Unassebled Columi Frontline Force Jacket Self-Perpetuating Power Cell (Crafting BoP material)
Schematic: Energized Combat Medic's Helmet

[xeroph34r]

Tip for Commander Ghulil on Black Talon, his firebombs are interuptable, so if you have 2 ppl with interrupts you can alternate and he will never get one off, ne and my tank buddy do it all the time

[Duroth]

Thanks for the input! i'll add that.

[Delia]

Something to note, the loot is not always the same stats, for instance, the Sith Entity in False Emp always drops a Tionese Implant, but it can be stats appropriate for any class at random. Final bosses of each dungeon always drop a Columi Tier token, but again it can be for any class.

Tier tokens per FP are:

Boarding Party - Columi Gloves
False Emperor - Columi Chest
Directive 7 - Columi Pants
Foundry - Columi Boots
Black Talon - Columi Bracers
Battle for Ilum - Columi Off-Hand

Also, I've been doing something similar on my guild's site, while I have done all the hardmodes to completion (yes even killed Revan), I have not written my guide for all of them yet. Other than those you have already posted, I had written one up for Battle for Ilum, I may have missed mini-bosses, but if I did, they were unmemorable, and likely easy >.>:

Battle for Ilum
Difficulty: Moderate

First Mini-Boss - Gark the Indomitable
Difficulty: Very Easy
Grak is a very easy boss, but I'll go over his mechanics anyway. Firstly, have your tank aim him away from your group, as he has a frontal cone AoE. Second concern is the adds he spawns, they are weak, and don't hit terribly hard, but shouldn't be allowed to stack up, make sure DPS are killing them. Finally he has 2 not-so-worrisome mechanics, the first being that he will knockback the tank on occasion, and the second being that he will randomly stun players for a short duration.

Velasu Graege and Drinda-Zel
Difficulty: Easy
Velasu stands with his Jedi partner Drinda-Zel, near the force shield leading into the mines. Drinda is fairly weak has few mechanics, and so should be killed first, also killing Velasu second postpones the most annoying mechanic of this fight (the turrets) until later.

Graege knocks melee targets away every 15 seconds or so, just cause we all know bosses like to annoy melee, he also occasionally stuns ranged. Other than that he just spams snipe, which can be interrupted. After a short time, Graege will call four turrets to aid him, they spawn continuously on top of one another until Graege is defeated. You can either heal through the increasing damage, and burn Graege quickly, or turn and burn the turrets whenever they spawn, both tactics are viable.

Second Mini-Boss - Crystal Cutter Droid
Difficulty: Very Easy
Crystal Cutter droid cannot be interrupted or crowd controlled, nor can his elite friend. Kill the elite (gold) droid first, then burn the Crystal cutter.

Second Boss - Krel Thak
Difficulty: Hard
Krel Thak is quite hard not due to the boss himself, but rather due to his adds. Every 30 seconds Krel will flashbang the entire party (this can be avoided with anti-CC abilities or broken using the PvP CC break), and summon 4 adds. They are normal mobs and have little health, but hit ridiculously hard, these should be stunned if possible and dealt with quickly, if at all possible always have some kind of cooldown ready for this phase.

For a short time after summoning adds, Krel will have a proximity probe buff, making any melee attacks cause damage to the attacker and knock them back, as such melee should avoid using AoE attacks to kill his adds.

Krel has a fairly strict enrage, so while his adds take priority, make sure that your DPS switch quickly once they are dead.

Bonus Boss - Guid Patriarch
Difficulty: Very Easy
The patriarch only had 1 mechanic, he will periodically use "rampage" which causes crystals to fall from the ceiling, avoid these crystals, and just burn the patriarch. The only real worry in this fight is his enrage, so make sure your DPS can do half decent damage.

Final Boss - Darth Seravin and Queneth Li
Difficulty: Moderate
Kill Queneth first in this encounter as she breaks CC constantly if you try to control her. If left alone she will heal both herself and Seravin making it difficult to beat the enrage timer. Interrupt as many of Queneth's heals as possible making doubly sure to catch Salvation as it is the most significant of her heals (on a 30 second CD).

Once Queneth is out of the picture, you can focus attention of Seravin. He casts DoTs on his primary target, and throws crystals at random targets, neither of which can be prevented, and must be healed through, he also occasionally will stun his primary target, which again cannot be prevented. On the interrupt side of things, he uses 2 attacks that can and should be stopped to help reduce damage; namely Dark Blast (single target attack aimed at the tank) and Charged Explosion (large damage AoE), with Charged Explosion interrupts taking priority.

There is quite a lot of damage in this fight, but other than interrupts the mechanics are pretty much non-existant.

Tier Loot: Columi Off-Hand Token

[Duroth]

unfortunately, for the time being i stopped playing SWTOR.

If someone could complete this compendium, that'd be great!

[Daedra Karagatzu]

This is a great thread thanks for posting this. I just did Black Talon HM last night and got my first PvE gear. Thanks!

[dulfy]

unfortunately, for the time being i stopped playing SWTOR.

If someone could complete this compendium, that'd be great!

I did a whole series of flashpoint guides a while back (all the hardmodes on the empire side completed), working on the Republic ones. Hopefully this is useful to fill in the gaps on yours.

FlashpointsDulfy