posted by
Fuego
May 8, 2023
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
Mustafar is a relentless planet full of the most intense beasts and bosses in the entire Galaxy. When tackling the various quest lines, expect a challenge like that is actually rewarding to overcome. Players are using skills and classes unique to the Combat Upgrade to find ways to defeat one particularly nasty Droid…
This series will be focused on the series of instances in the Champion of Mustafar quest line with players giving their take on the best strategies to take on these challenges.
The Decrepit Droid Factory is one instance in a long line of quests known as the Champion of Mustafar. Some of the most sought after loot, weapons, and enhancements come from this quest line. This particular dungeon has players solving puzzles and defeating Colonel OR-5 and ultimately the Factory Guardian.
• Beetle Cavern (Released with 1.0 last September)
• Old Republic Facility (Released with 1.0 last September)
• Droid Factory Decrepit (Released with 1.0 last September)
• The Droid Army (Released in February)
• Operational Droid Factory (Released in March)
• HK-47 (Released in May)
Clocked in at 10,000 damage in one hit, the Factory Guardian is extremely dangerous. Players will need to form teams with strategic builds in order to become victorious. Developers have had a blast creating new twists on content fitting for Restoration's challenging mindset. This is the Droid Factory like you've never seen before...
“Restoration gives players a lot of varied options to build combat characters, so it gives us the opportunity to really test those builds by amping up the difficulty on our instanced battles. Players are clever, and we want to reward them for coming up with ways to defeat powerful enemies. The Factory Guardian was one of our first chances to really make something much more powerful than you'd normally encounter in the game, and let players figure out the best ways to meet the challenge.”
-ornj, Restoration Developer
Recently, the Restoration Community voted heavily in favor of eliminating the Progression System experiment. This system sequentially unlocked dungeons as the Community completed Mustafar content such as quests, badges, and defeating bosses. Although the Community working together toward a common goal to unlock these instances was a good idea, in practice did not come together as intended.
Developers have taken this feedback into consideration and have been actively working toward balancing the Mustafar instances for the Combat Upgrade. These instances have been released over the course of the past few months, wrapping up with HK-47 here in May. Future Resto Features will cover the remaining instances such as the Droid Army, Droid Factory 2, and HK-47.
Restoration has taken the unique step of increasing the difficulty for Mustafar instances. This difficulty increase begins to be felt in the Decrepit Droid Factory (DF1). Preparation is key to being successful in completing the more difficult content available on Restoration. Getting into the habit now of understanding the content and having a plan that includes group composition will ensure future success.
You may have seen the Exo-Protein Wafer memes on discord joking about its magical abilities to make a player a demigod. Well, they’re only slight exaggerations. Reducing 30% of damage for about 25 seconds at 4 food fill means that you can practically keep it up for every major fight. Synthsteak is a more powerful version of this buff but has a much higher fill so it should only be used for emergencies.
"When building a group, I prioritize having a Squad Leader in my group as the top priority."
Make sure your group composition is appropriate for the content you are completing. A good build in my opinion is flexible and well rounded, so there is no hard rule to group composition as many people run builds that can perform multiple roles competently. When building a group, I prioritize having a Squad Leader in my group as the top priority. Secondly, I make sure that the group has enough heals. Most people run at least some doctor or combat medic in their builds, so this is not typically an issue. Multiple combat medics can create enough healing output to not require somebody dedicated to healing. From there, I make sure the group has enough damage to clear the dungeon effectively. A group should have a mixture of AOE and single target damage appropriate to the dungeon. DF1 is mostly a single target dungeon, Droid Army is an AOE heavy one. Keep that in mind when selecting damage professions.
Having a player with Center of Being is massively helpful for tanking bosses. Melee players tend to be well suited for tanking. Special shout out to the Pikeman and Teras Kasi players out there. This is their time to shine, let them take the hits for your group.
Your Squad Leader should be changing their group buffs when it makes sense. A good squad leader is always assessing the situation and applying the best buff for the job. You can and should be swapping frequently. Volley Fire should be used on bosses or when the group is low on action, double time should be used when AOE'ing packs down, form up should be applied when running between objectives.
"In DF1 my group will always use Second Chance on the Factory Guardian and position ourselves in a circle around the boss. This gives us a couple of minutes to focus on killing the boss without worrying about his high damage."
Plan ahead of time when the Squad Leader will use Second Chance. Second Chance is an incredibly powerful cooldown that splits damage received between group members. Using this ability and everybody using Wafers or Synthsteak will result in a very potent reduction in incoming damage. You can use this to survive nearly survivable situations or to give an extra edge against more punishing mechanics. Because of its long cooldown, it should be reserved for the most difficult part of the dungeon. In DF1 my group will always use Second Chance on the Factory Guardian and position ourselves in a circle around the boss. This gives us a couple of minutes to focus on killing the boss without worrying about his high damage.
If you follow these steps, you will be well prepared to tackle the most challenging content restoration will have to offer. SWG is a game that heavily rewards preparation and having a plan. If your group struggles, have a discussion to try to determine what went wrong and adjust. Sometimes making small adjustments such as having individual players focus on certain tasks like healing or focusing certain enemies will push your group over the top. Don’t give up and keep trying different things.
May The Force Be With You,
The SWG Restoration Team
