SWTOR Propagator Core XR-53 Guide

Propagator Core XR-53 is a single-boss Operation, sometimes known as a lair boss, in Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is availably in the slightly-above-easy-mode Story Mode, and the decently-difficult Veteran Mode, and both versions are only available to level 80 Subscribers. This boss is meant to be done with a coordinated group of 8 players who are max level, are familiar with their class or role, and have decent level 80 gear.

PUBLIC TEST SERVER: This information and guide is from the public test server. The art was not final and I’m unsure if I got all the mechanics right. I’m looking forward to re-visiting this boss with the launch of Update 7.6 on December 10!

How to Start

The entrance to the XR-53 boss’s lair is on Ilum, inside either the Republic or Imperial base near where you land on the planet.

There is a one-time quest from a glowing blue terminal right outside the entrance called Relentless Replication that gives you the basic story of the boss, and rewards you five copies of the Ancient Stepped Altar decoration. This quest is completed once you go inside the lair entrance and the defeat XR-53.

It may also drop a Bioprocessor Satchel which contains 20 Corrupted Bioprocessors, which will be deposited into your materials inventory when claimed, rather than going into your inventory.

Weekly Quest: There is also a weekly quest in the Priority Termina

Rewards

In addition to the normal rewards dropped by Operation bosses, this boss allows players to get both the schematics for the best augments in the game, and some of the materials to craft them. Both story mode and veteran mode have a chance to drop the schematics, but Veteran mode has a higher chance. Veteran mode also drops more materials than story mode. These schematic, and materials, can also be bought and sold on the GTN. To learn more about crafting and reverse-engineering these augments to get the best augments in the game, read the How to Craft Augments Guide.

Quick Instructions

In story mode, the fight should be completable by most groups, but is a step above in difficulty compared to most story mode groups. Here’s the quick info:

Instructions for Everyone:

• If you see any small enemies appear, kill them first and kill them quickly. This includes Prey Seeker floating droids with red arrows coming from them, tall Powerful Constructs, and nearby Imperfect Constructs standing in big red circles.
• Stay out of the bad green goop and the tiny red circles.
• The more green goop you stand in, the faster you’ll die – but you can cleanse yourself by standing in the orange rectangle when it shows up.

Tank:

• Take him to the edge of the room to start.
• He does an attack called Lethal Strike.
  
  This hurts. Try and use a defensive cooldown while he casts it to avoid some damage.
  
  This will give you a stack of the Softened Up debuff. The more you have of these, the more Lethal Strike hurts the next time it hits.
  If you have a second tank or damage-with-taunt, you can tank-swap with them. Be aware, if a damage player gets hit with Lethal Strike, they’ll do less damage while they have the red Softened Up debuff.
• Turn him away from the group. He does a forward red rectangle attack called Extraneous Expulsion you’d like to not hit the group with.
  

  

  The red rectangle puts green goop down where it is pointing, so you’ll need to move.

  

• However, don’t turn him directly against a wall. He does an attack called Hungering Bite which is a forward orange rectangle attack – your team can walk into this orange rectangle on purpose, as it will cleanse their stack from standing in the green goop, so make sure there’s enough space for them to get in there!
  

  

• Make sure to stand in the orange circle for Prime Directive if you are tanking

Additional Veteran Mode instructions:

• During the Prime Directive phase, when there is an orange circle on the ground, you want to feed one of each of the three roles to the boss by having them in the circle:
  • Rampaging Construct = DPS Player = Kill this one as quickly as possible as it does raid-wide damage that looks like orange cracks on the ground
  • Defender Construct = Tank Player = Kill this one as quickly as it makes the boss immune
  • Supplicant Construct = Healer = This droid needs to be interrupted often or it will heal the boss, the ability to interrupt is called Supplication and has a green icon
  • Mistake = You did not feed him a role he hadn’t tried yet.

Mechanics

Here’s a bunch of extra details you don’t really need to know!

Prey Seeker and Stun

The Prey Seeker picks a random player, points a red arrow at them from across the screen, then stuns them. The team needs to find it and kill it to unstun their team mate.

Imperfect Construct and Big Red Circles

The Imperfect Construct picks a random player and puts a red down triangle over their head.

It will jump to them and make a big red circle around itself.

It is casting an ability called “Imperfect Explosion” – if it doesn’t die before it explodes, it will put a giant green goop on the floor. Some teams may choose to ignore these droids for faster DPS, some may only kill the ones near the boss to get them out of the way, some groups kill them all to avoid all green goop.

Our organized team decided to kill only the ones that were close to the boss / in the way, and ignore the rest.

Small Red Circles

Little red circles appear. These are just damage you can step out of.

Prime Directive

In story mode, Prime Directive is where the boss wants to take a sample of any member of the group – at least one person should stand in the orange circle when the red text pops up. It does not matter who or how many people. The boss will need to do this a total of four times before entering the final phase of the fight. He will then generate a Powerful Construct.

In Veteran Mode, the idea is you want to give the boss each of the three roles to sample in the orange sample, one at a time. So plan to have say a tank go in the first time, a healer the second, and a damage player the third. Your group will need to adjust if people are running around and the wrong person accidentally gets sampled.

• Rampaging Construct = DPS Player = Kill this one as quickly as possible as it does raid-wide damage that looks like orange cracks on the ground
• Defender Construct = Tank Player = Kill this one as quickly as it makes the boss immune
• Supplicant Construct = Healer = This droid needs to be interrupted often or it will heal the boss, the ability to interrupt is called Supplication and has a green icon
• Mistake = You did not feed him a role he hadn’t tried yet.

Glass Tanks around the room

The red glass tanks around the room are actually not part of the fight, but are kind of neat – they fill up over time as the droid “samples” your team, and once they are full, the boss use the vats of samples to create the new enemy droid you fight. Gross.

Powerful Construct

In story mode, he will generate a Powerful Construct when he successfully samples a player during Prime Directive. This tall enemy does a lot of damage and the team needs to kill it quickly.

Hungering Bite

Hungering Bite is when he says, “Mmmmm…. just… a taste.” and looks like a large orange rectangle. It is not a bad thing on the ground.

The idea is you can step in it to cleanse your stacks. The stacks are from standing in any of the green stuff on the ground. The stacking debuff is an orange shield on fire called Digestive Enzyme.

The little skulls above your head are linked to this stacking debuff – for example, I had three orange skulls above my head right before I died from 19 stacks of Digestive Enzyme.

Burn Phase

I am unsure exactly what is supposed to happen, but the final 23% felt like a burn phase in Veteran Mode.