Hello,

 

Our guild is progressing through denova hard mode, and we are stuck at Kephess right now. While we mastered almost entire encounter, there is one thing that prevented us from killing him yesterday. I would like to know if it was a bug, or maybe we are missing something.

 

As we understand it, last phase of the fight (from the point when kephess pulls everyone to the end of the fight) should be like this:

 

- Kephess goes to one tank, uses breath of the masters on him

- Second tank taunts kephess during breath of the masters cast

- First tank places purple circles away from group, and is prepared to taunt Kephess when he sees breath cast again. etc etc

 

 

If that is done correctly, there should be no way for boss to one shot a tank (except if he reaches enrage timer, or knocks tank to circle), right?

 

What happened to us was that boss one shooted a tank with 23k hit without even casting breath of masters on him.

 

It happened 2 times. Boss wasn't enraged for sure, and tanks wasnt knocked back to circle.

 

Has it ever occured to you guys? Are we missing something?

 

Thanks for answers.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Senali

Where in the phase are you? I.e. is it before or after Kephess pulls everyone in at 58% health?

 

There are two additional things to look for in this fight that you didn't mention:

 

1) Above 58%: Kephess will put a very nasty DOT on whoever has aggro after doing his red-circle jumps. It is strongly preferred to do a tank swap when that happens. The debuff icon is orange-ish and looks like a guy holding a lightsaber.

 

2) Below 58%: Taunting during breath of the masters might be too late. We've noticed that it works a lot better to taunt him immediately after the knockback instead (which should happen just before he casts breath of the masters). Any damage taken after breath of the masters will one-shot the tank having the debuff.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Weeblie

2) Below 58%: Taunting during breath of the masters might be too late. We've noticed that it works a lot better to taunt him immediately after the knockback instead (which should happen just before he casts breath of the masters). Any damage taken after breath of the masters will one-shot the tank having the debuff.

 

If you do this, he will put the debuff on the tank that just taunted, causing him to die.

The instagib debuff is called Touch of the Masters, and the big knockback hit applies it. Technically you can taunt between the knockback and the Breath of the Masters cast - in this case, the tank with the Touch debuff is going to be standing around doing nothing, while the other tank is going to have Kephess on him AND be dropping purple circles. Ideally you want to taunt during Breath of the Masters, so that Breath goes on the tank with Touch, and Kephess immediately goes after the other tank as soon as Breath is done casting.

 

If your tank is getting instagibbed before the first Breath finishes casting, it's possible you still have a Savage Wounding bleed from before Gift, and that is triggering Touch. If the fatal hit is for EXACTLY your max hp, you know you got killed by something triggering Touch, despite what the in-game window tells you.

Edited September 25, 2012 by CitizenFry

If kephess touches the tank right after he knocks him back its a 1 hit kill. As soon as your tank goes flying through the air he needs to be running away as fast as possible until kephess is taunted off and the circles begin. That's the only part of the fight I could think of where its a for sure 1 hit kill.

You can visit http://chosen-elite.com/strategies to find a video on Kephess.

 

To sum it up, the knockback DOES NOT put the 'Breath of the Masters' debuff on the current tank. He will cast it right AFTER the knockback and this is when you would want to taunt it off. As for the death, defeat message is not always reliable (sometimes it would show the damage it dealt to someone else rather than yourself), you got to be sure you don't have the DoT (which ticks for around 8k damage) he puts on you before Gift of the Masters and you need to be topped off after Gift of the Masters.

 

Hope this helps,

Arkonzoa

Arkonzoa, but that's exactly what happened to us.

 

Kephess did knockback killing the tank without casting breath. It was like:

 

- knockback

- tank gets one shooted with that knockback

- boss changes target due to one tank dead

-boss is casting breath of the masters

 

In other words, he used his abilities in other order than it should be.

Then it would normally mean that the first tank is not topped off (unless he's a sin and force shrouds at the right moment) if he is killed by the cleave. Breath of the Master does not do any damage AT ALL. Using a defensive CD is usually preferred as soon as you enter the last phase (Gift of the Masters).

 

Arkonzoa

Edited September 25, 2012 by Arkonzoa

Hello,

 

What happened to us was that boss one shooted a tank with 23k hit without even casting breath of masters on him.

 

It happened 2 times. Boss wasn't enraged for sure, and tanks wasnt knocked back to circle.

 

Has it ever occured to you guys? Are we missing something?

 

Thanks for answers.

Well this happens if Your tank isn't knocked back far enough. So for instance if Your tank has a wall behind his back and Kephesh will knock him to that wall the tank will get one additional hit and that will be one-shot. Since we learned not to tank him in that phase with a wall behind tanks that never happened (although we had weird glitch once or twice that Kephesh changed his target without any particular reason: one tank was putting the circles, other was taking a beating and in the middle of that phase Kephesh suddenly decided to jump to circle putting tank, which was one shot as well).

Thanks bbong, I think positioning before knockback is the key then;)

Pretty sure the knockback comes with a conal so when tanking him the second tank placing circles can not be in the conal or else he'll get one shotted.

I've seen videos of people tanking Kephess just fine with their backs to the wall.

 

Remember, Breath of the Masters causes the circles to drop from the target; it is completely unrelated to the one-hit KO.

Where in the phase are you? I.e. is it before or after Kephess pulls everyone in at 58% health?

 

There are two additional things to look for in this fight that you didn't mention:

1) Above 58%: Kephess will put a very nasty DOT on whoever has aggro after doing his red-circle jumps. It is strongly preferred to do a tank swap when that happens. The debuff icon is orange-ish and looks like a guy holding a lightsaber.

 

2) Below 58%: Taunting during breath of the masters might be too late. We've noticed that it works a lot better to taunt him immediately after the knockback instead (which should happen just before he casts breath of the masters). Any damage taken after breath of the masters will one-shot the tank having the debuff.

 

You got me thinking - how long does this dot last? if you happen to know? I'm aware of its existence, just not of its duration.