nightmare TFB/ operations/ patch 2.2/ SWTOR

SWTOR Operator IX Nightmare TFB guide

Dulfy 21 Comments May 29, 2013

A guide to defeating Operator IX in SWTOR Nightmare Terror from Beyond (TFB) operation.

General information & Video

HP: Datacores – 169k, Operator IX – 2.15 million on 8m.
Enrage: ?
Loot: 1x Kell Dragon Boots, 1 random Shadowed item (L75 stuff without set bonus), 8 Elite Commendations, 6 Ultimate Commendations, 1 Mass Manipulation Generator, 1 Exotic Element Equalizer on 8m.

Video (Live server)

Main Differences from Hardmode

Phase 1 – Datacores

No failing any phase or entire raid wipes
Datacores need to be killed within 5s of each other

In Nightmare mode, you can no longer fail any of the phases. Doing so will cause an automatic raid wipe. If you are used to failing purple in hardmode, this tactic no longer works.

The two datacores have to be killed within 5 seconds of each other as they gained a new buff called Dual Core in Nightmare mode.

When one datacore dies, the other datacore casts White Parallel, a 5 second cast. At end of the cast, the remaining datacore gains significant damage mitigation and might cause you to fail that particular color, resulting in the spawn of rectifiers.

What this means is that your raid DPS will need to be split into two, with DPS responsible for the datacores that spawn in the top half of the map and DPS responsible for datacores on the bottom half of the map (everytime the datacores spawn, one is always at the top part of the map while another is opposite of it at the bottom part of the map). Call out their % and don’t kill until you are certain the other side can kill theirs within 5 seconds of yours.

When you don’t have an even number of DPS killing the datacores (i.e. you have three DPS), you can have two DPS help bring one datacore really low and then have the one of the two DPS swap to the other datacore with just one DPS. Then you need to coordinate to kill both within 5 seconds of each other.

For reference, we have our group set up as this way during the datacores. You can get away having two DPS on the consoles/middle during Blue as the timer is fairly lenient. For both orange and purple we have 3 DPS killing the datacores and one of them swap between the two datacores when one gets low. For yellow we have all the DPS free to meet the shorter timer.

	Console	Middle
Blue Team	DPS	DPS
Orange Team	Tank	DPS
Purple Team	Healer	DPS
Yellow Team	Tank	Healer

Phase 2 – Operator IX

Don’t step on a wrong color circle or you wipe the raid

The main mechanic change for Operator IX is to not step on color circles that are not your own during Black Obtuse. This means you should stay away from these color circle areas and not run through other player’s color circles to get to your own. Doing so will get you killed in Nightmare mode.

Reminder of Hardmode mechanics

If you are not familiar with the hardmode mechanics, here is a quick brush up for you. For a more detailed guide, please consult this guide.

Phase 1

Raid is split into four teams of two, each team is assigned with one of four colors: blue, orange, purple, and yellow. One player in each team need to stand in the circle with Master Controller while the other player deactivates one of the panels to take off the shields on the Data Cores.
You have 70 seconds for Blue, 60 seconds for Orange, 55 seconds for Purple and 50 seconds for Yellow to kill both Datacores. Failure to do so will spawn a Rectifier add in addition to any adds that come during those colored phases (Orange and yellow phases spawn Regulator champion adds while blue and purple phases spawn strong Recognizer adds)
In addition, everyone need to kill their color sphere to get a buff for phase 2.

Phase 2

During Black Obtuse, everyone need to find their color circle and stand in it. Failure to do so in a timely manner (8 seconds) will result in the raid taking massive damage.
Operator IX will call out a random player in the raid for deletion protocol by a certain color. A raid member with that color’s buff must run into the player being called out to protect them from deletion protocol.

iceberg265

On hard mode on live, and at level 50 as well, if you even stepped in the wrong color passing through, one person in your raid would get randomly one shot by the boss, so that isn’t really a change for Nightmare. As always thank you for the very fast work.
- Grimsblood
  
  That is not true. A lot of people misunderstand that mechanic. When the boss does not have a color for deletion he will target a random member and do an attack on him/her. The tank should watch the Target of Target and Taunt soon as it falls of him/her. The person target will not get the full damage and be one shot (it is actually a series of attacks). Just to clarify, you will not get a deletion if this happens. Typically you can force this by having someone die before they get to their deletion clearing.
  
  In NiM, you literally die soon as you touch the wrong color. I do agree that it isn’t a game changing NiM mechanic though.
  - iceberg265
    
    Unless our raids have bugged for the last 6 months or however long TfB has been out, it has always been a one shot instant attack on HM if someone stepped in the wrong color. He will do it instead of the deletion.
    - Grimsblood
      
      You are relating two separate things that are not related. I can touch every color circle and run through the middle of the boss to get to mine and the mechanic is not present. Soon as someone dies it shows up. Soon as the dps is slow and all the deletions colors have been used, it shows up. Just because you have someone dead and touch a color does not mean the color is the result of the “1 Shot”. Furthermore, that “1 Shot” does a series of attacks and not just one hit (actually, most attacks in this game register as a series vs one). You can check our combat logs to see this. If the tank taunts soon as the Target of Target changes you will noticed a random raid member at a lower health but not dead.
      
      This HM wrong color mechanic is a Myth, just like attacking the boss in the middle of the room will give more raid damage is a Myth.
      - iceberg265
        
        It is not a myth, I have seen it happen many many times over the last several months. No one is dead, we think we did the colors correctly, and then Operator turns and randomly 1 shots a raid member instead of doing the deletion protocol. Then next round he will go back to doing the deletion protocol as normal.
        
        He will also do it THROUGH a taunt. I tank for my guild, I have tried to have a taunt active on the boss when this happens to prevent it, and sometimes he just does it anyways.
        
        Occasionally when we know we have messed up the colors I have been able to save the person targeted with a taunt, but it almost always instantly kills them.
        
        Grimsblood
        
        You have to taunt after the target switch happens (special case not following general threat rules). It is not related to stepping on the “wrong” color. If it is, go in there and run all over all of them and then see if someone gets one shot.
        
        Rylan Harwood
        
        You are 100% wrong and likely a bad tank if you don’t understand a simple mechanic like that. I also find it likely that you either, do not use TOT, or simply don’t look at it. The mechanic is similar to what is seen on EC NiM on Vorgath where he will change targets periodically. You can taunt at the last moment before the channel ends and that is fine (taunt has a 5 second effect).
        
        iceberg265
        
        I guarantee I am a better tank than you, please keep your childish petty insults to yourself. If you actually read what you were replying to instead of just spewing your holier than thou BS, you would see that I had already addressed the point you brought up.
        
        Rylan Harwood
        
        I’ll retract that statement. I did mis-read. Sorry.
        
        Hoot
        
        The boss will not do it “through” a taunt. The thing you are referring to is called Disinfection and yes it does happen when someone runs through a color circle that is not theirs. If I’m not mistaken, it may also happen when 2 deletion shields of any given color have been used, then the boss starts doing Disinfection on random people even if they did not run through an incorrect color circle. If Disinfection is going to happen, it will always be very shortly after Black Obtuse ends (aka when the orange shield drops off the boss).
        
        To prevent people from dying, simply taunt immediately after Op IX changes targets (if you don’t have target of target on as a tank especially, do not speak). By taunt immediately after Op IX changes targets, I mean immediately…you MIGHT have 2 seconds but I think it’s actually 1 second. Note: taunting before Op IX changes targets will do absolutely nothing, and the person will die. So you cannot taunt before it to save people, nor can you taunt too late.
        
        This is based off of my experiences where so long as I taunt quickly enough after Op IX changes targets, nobody in my raid ever dies to this mechanic…ever. So if you are saying he does it “through” a taunt, you are just taunting too early, aka before he actually changes targets.
        
        Golfik
        
        Apart from Iceberg comments all other have some right info about this and i might not be 100% correct myself on all what i will say but one thing holds true:
        
        Running thru color that is not yours, will not get your targeted for Deletion. it might be coincidence but this is not defining factor.
        
        In the link below you will see me get hit by it when i have not run thru any colors other them my own. Please check 8:10 to see this happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h10jpV1KF38
        
        From my limited experience and looking thru logs when we were progressing HM TFB (we still doing so after getting back not so long ago) i see know this:
        
        1. Disinfection is one of boss standard attacks. It happens even before first “black obtuse” phase. I have seen our tank dying to it in combination with Regulators End Line cast. This skill hits your tanks a lot of the times.
        
        2. This skill seems to be used every time there is a target swap for boss due to taunt or aggro. I believe that Black Obtuse resets threat and this is why it is so easy to rip aggro from boss, thus getting him to change targets and instant shoot at people. If you look at my link above and you can see that i instantly lost health the second he targets me. There is no way for any tank to get around it.
        
        looking thru logs you can see this:
        
        Black Obtuse end at this moment…..
        23:57:27 Golfik’s Sabotage Charge (Tech) critically hits Operator IX for 5908* kinetic damage, causing 5908 threat!
        23:57:28 Operator IX’s Disinfection hits Golfik for 8437 energy damage, causing 8437 threat.
        23:57:28 Operator IX’s Disinfection hits Golfik for 8437 energy damage, causing 8437 threat.
        23:57:28 Operator IX’s Disinfection hits Golfik for 8437 energy damage, causing 8437 threat.
        
        My tanks aggro:
        
        00:57:24 Bomberzasty activates Strike.
        00:57:24 Bomberzasty’s Strike critically hits Operator IX for 396* energy damage, causing 792 threat!
        00:57:24 Bomberzasty’s Strike hits Operator IX for 233 energy damage, causing 466 threat.
        00:57:25 Operator IX dodges Bomberzasty’s Strike, causing 1 threat.
        00:57:26 Bomberzasty activates Guardian Slash.
        00:57:26 Bomberzasty’s Guardian Slash hits Operator IX for 1721 energy damage, causing 4476 threat.
        00:57:26 Operator IX’s effect of Blue Convex fades from Bomberzasty.
        00:57:26 Bomberzasty activates Riposte.
        00:57:27 Bomberzasty activates Taunt.
        00:57:27 Bomberzasty’s Taunt adds effect Taunt to Operator IX.
        
        As you can see he instant taunted boss of me, but i already had – 25k health.
        
        Because of this i believe that in order to avoid Disinfection your tanks have to do the following:
        
        off tank taunt 1 second before Black Obtuse finishes casting.
        main tank counts to 3 when cast finishes and taunts again. He gets hit but have loads of time to build a threat.
        
        Also if you have adds and people on low health its is possible for your healer to rip aggro of your tank and again get hit by disinfection.
        ——————————————
        
        Also on another note, one very interesting mechanic that has never been mentioned and you can see this happening in video linked above, You can shield yourself from Deletion protocol as long as someone with the right color is next to you and you have same color as them but they have no orb buff anymore:
        
        At 6.50 Bomberzasty (our tank – blue color) get targeted by blue deletion protocol however our other blue player (Roman) used his orb buff to protect Szamanka on first deletion protocol. However by running into Bomberzasty he triggered our tank to shield himself confirmed by text on the screen.
        
        I was not aware of that.
Thuviel

I was watching your video and just wanted to clarify something:
You have to kill the datacores within 5 seconds of each other, however, could you explain how its possible to fail the purple phase?
Do you kill the first purple datacore in the last 5 seconds of the first purple phase so that it wont have time to cast the full White Parallel, and then kill the second purple datacore in the second purple phase?
- Thuviel
  
  Oooh, forget my OP, I’m an idiot, you leave both purple datacores at a low hp and then finish them both off within 5 seconds of each other after failing the first purple phase. Sorry for my foolishness!
lommie

Does the new Datacore-mechanic change how you compose your color teams? Until now we always put a dd together with a heal or tank so in every phase one DD is standing in the inner circle while the tank / heal triggers the console. Because of this one datacore only gets the damage of one DD while the other one gets attacked by two and therefore is the first to go down, most likely more than five seconds before the second one follows. If I get this right, with the new mechanic this wouldn’t be possible any more, and I’d estimate that time would be too short to have one dd change sides shortly before the “2-dd-datacore” gets down?
- Dulfy
  
  We did change the color team composition a bit. For blue, we had two DPS in the same in the same team. Blue is a bit lenient on the DPS so you can afford to have a DPS standing inside the circle and a DPS doing the panel. For orange we have a DPS stand in the middle while a tank clicks and for purple we have a healer stand in the middle while a DPS clicks. For yellow, however, we have a tank and healer combo so this frees up all the DPS.
  
  We do actually have DPS switch from one datacore to the other, something I forgot to mention. The datacore with two DPS would bring it down really low and swap the the core with just one DPS and then coordinate to bring both down within 5 seconds of each other. I will add that bit in.
Rylan Harwood

I actually just have a question in relation to the difficulty of this instance. Wasn’t sure where to post it. Did you find the mechanics of TFB NiM more difficult than previous nightmare modes, or is this really just a DPS check + couple new mechanics to remember?
- Dulfy
  
  Yes mostly just a DPS check + some new mechanics. Only fight that is a bit diffcult is the Dread Guards but overall it seems easier than Nightmare EC when it was first introduced.
Hoot

I’ve seen several color combinations work, but my preferred combination is:

Blue: your group’s top 2 dps (they will have to kill 1 core each during OJ phase)

Orange: the other 2 dps (they have will also have to kill 1 core each, but it is during the longest phase: Blue)

Purple: Tank + Healer (preferably Guardian or Vanguard as Shadows still have the longest interrupt cd, and this tank will be solo tanking 2 Regulators during yellow phase)

Yellow: Tank + Healer (preferably the tank you want tanking the boss)

This allows all 4 dps to be available during both purple and yellow phases, you do not fail purple this way as I have seen most groups that only have 3 dps available for purple need to do. This makes Orange the most difficult phase if your 2 dps on Blue can’t handle 1 core each, but if they can it makes phase 1 cake.

We have the tanks click and healers in mid, but I have seen it the other way around.

If it does not work out well to have 1 rdps and 1 mdps so you have to have a mdps in the middle for Blue and Orange phases, then have the tanks bring adds to the center so the mdps can help them out.

Figured I’d throw this out there as I rarely see other groups doing it this way and I find it to be easier.
Beli

Is failing on Datacores phase not an option anymore on NiM or did i encounter a bug? I see there’s still mention of a fail add, but my team got instantly wiped when we failed to kill BOTH cores in time. This happend to us several times in that ops.
- Dulfy
  
  Yes that is a newly mechanic they added to the live servers, I will update the guide 😀
  - crumb007
    
    Still did not completely update the guide on this, it still says regulators spawn if fail core, which doesn’t happen, it’s a wipe.

SWTOR Operator IX Nightmare TFB guide

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