Copperbell Mines (Hard) - bypassing mechanics of first boss.

ISP:
Comcast

Type of Internet Connection:
Cable

Internet Connection Speed:
Don’t recall (probably isn’t relevant - let me know if you need to follow up)

Date & Time:
About 9:35 PM US Pacific Time, Tuesday, Sept. 29 2015

Frequency:
Unknown; will not attempt to replicate because I believe that this party member may have engaged in bug abuse.

Character Name:
I’m Rhys Renouille. However, I observed others possibly exploiting this bug; I don’t want to give their name(s) here and potentially break rules by calling them out, particularly in the unlikely event that there is no bug involved.

Race:
Lalafell M

World:
Gilgamesh/Aether Data Center

Class/Level:
Machinist, level 52.

Area and Coordinates:
Copperbell Mines (Hard), roughly X: 11; Y: 8.

Party or Solo:
Party; 4-person party, created by duty finder by queueing Duty Roulette: High Level; not undersized.

NPC Name:
None

Monster Name:
Hecatoncheir Mastermind

In-Game Time:
Do not recall

Steps:
To the best of my recollection and understanding, the healer in our party insisted that we all stand right at the very entrance of the fight, almost on top of the translucent “gate” that closes after 15 seconds of combat. She insisted that, contrary to all logic, if we were to stand in this exact location, we would both not be harmed by the flames and we would not have to fight the bombs. Believing this to be total nonsense, I ignored her and attempted to do the fight normally; this resulted in a wipe, as only one person - myself - was not enough to handle the bombs.

The healer again insisted we try it her way, and we did - all four of us stacked at the entrance, only one step inside of the zone; when the translucent "gate" that locked the zone closed, I was pushed slightly into the room. Although the fire dot continued across the floor like normal, it did not harm the healer, who was standing in it. We ignored bombs and while the bombs exploded, they did not cause any damage to the party; normally, the bombs exploding in this fight result in an automatic wipe and failure.

For reasons that I don't understand, the healer took zero damage from the fire area-of-effect on the floor, and she did not have the floor AOE's icon visible on her statuses, unlike the other DPS, the tank, and myself; unlike her, we did indeed take damage from the floor AOE. The key to this "strategy" seemed to be that all four of us stayed at the entrance to the fight, not taking even one more step into the room.

It does not seem like this should have worked, that almost all of the fight’s mechanics could be disabled merely by staying at the entrance of the zone. It seemed that perhaps the bombs didn’t notice that we were in the area, because by staying at the entrance we were too far for the bombs to “aggro” to us. We were not an undersized party, so this wasn’t a case of us simply having enough HP that we could ignore the mechanics. It also makes no sense that the healer did not take damage from the floor's fire AOE, since she was plainly standing on top of it; upon reflection, this made me believe that this entire course of of events was caused by some form of bug.

Please feel free to get in contact with me on the forums or in-game to further discuss if that would be helpful.