Hey there, Tidus here, GM of Ambient 4/4 H EC 16 clear 4/24/12.

Here is a link to a video of one of our Kephess attempts the other night where Kephess managed to one shot a tank with "Arcing Slash" when the tank was 20m behind him, and while Kephess was casting "Breath of the Masters".

You'll see the tank Tidus, me, on the left marked with Crosshair randomly die due to "Arcing Slash" from Kephess WHILE Kephess is casting "Breath of the Masters". Note he also manages to do this without changing targets and without moving.

We've killed this many times now, and have only seen this once this week after this most recent patch. I'm not looking for feedback or anything, just thought it was hilarious and there is definitely something wrong going on here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW8QmyQOaOY

That boggles the mind. I've never had that happen to me, fortunately.

Hopefully one of the forum mods will pass this along to the appropriate team so they can look into what might have happened there.

The arcing slash puts a debuff on you that kills you if you take damage after. Your tank was running from the purple circle which gave him a tick of damage. So the slash debuff killed him instantly in accordance to the tooltip.

"Arcing Slash" should not be confused with "Savage Arcing Slash." They are two different abilities. The former is just an attack that cleaves. The latter is a cleave that also knocks the tank back and applies Touch of the Masters.

I don't agree with your assessment that he took a tick of purple circle damage either. He's clearly well out of the circle when he dies. Did you get a log, Tidus? If so, we could see what really got you for sure.

Last week I fell over dead on one pull while dropping purple circles. I died to the other tank's Savage Arcing Slash. I was far away from Kephess (between 20-30m) when this happened and still died to it. The log clearly showed that I died to the other tank's slash, and that I even shielded the hit (which would be impossible if it was a purple circle fail).

It generally seems like the Breath tank can eat cleaves when within 30m of Kephess. The best way we've found to deal with the issue on 16-man is to use 3 tanks and make sure that the tank dropping the Breath is > 30m away from Kephess. With 3 tanks we can do that.

I suppose it's possible that they truly intend for the frontal range of Savage Arcing Slash to be something huge (like 20+ m), in which case it's not a bug, but then you run into issues with the game not understanding where bosses are facing (I'm looking at you, Bonethrasher). The safest way to handle it as the Breath tank is to simply not be anywhere close when the slash happens.

I don't agree with your assessment that he took a tick of purple circle damage either. He's clearly well out of the circle when he dies.

I suppose you believe it's a coincidence he just happened to be leaving the purple circle right when he died? Lag happens, visual bugs happen. I think it's far more likely that he simply died to the purple with the debuff on than a catastrophic bug of kephess himself that randomly kills people. Especially since many other people aren't complaining about this.

I suppose you believe it's a coincidence he just happened to be leaving the purple circle right when he died? Lag happens, visual bugs happen. I think it's far more likely that he simply died to the purple with the debuff on than a catastrophic bug of kephess himself that randomly kills people. Especially since many other people aren't complaining about this.

The original poster says that he died to "Arcing Slash." I am assuming he looked at logs to acquire that information. If the logs truly do say he died to "Arcing Slash", then I'm inclined to believe them. You are certainly right that it could just be visual lag, but I don't think the poster would have mentioned a specific attack unless he checked logs.

Anyway, my original point remains that it is best to use 3 tanks on 16-man so that you guarantee that the Breath tank can be far away and that the taunting tank will never have Touch of the Masters. This is true regardless of what he died to.

The original poster says that he died to "Arcing Slash." I am assuming he looked at logs to acquire that information. If the logs truly do say he died to "Arcing Slash", then I'm inclined to believe them. You are certainly right that it could just be visual lag, but I don't think the poster would have mentioned a specific attack unless he checked logs.

The reason I believe this to be the case is because last time we did kephess HM, when we wiped I was one of the last alive and I remember getting his debuff, standing in a circle with him not aggro on me, and dying in the purple circle yet my death message said arcing slash.

The reason I believe this to be the case is because last time we did kephess HM, when we wiped I was one of the last alive and I remember getting his debuff, standing in a circle with him not aggro on me, and dying in the purple circle yet my death message said arcing slash.

Yup, that's why my first question in the thread was if he checked raw logs or not, since the death overview lies and blames Savage Arcing Slash, but the raw logs correctly show what attack really got ya.

Well this happened to my twice last night on Kephess, I was between 30-40m behind the boss, there where ranged and healers in my way yet they lived and I died from savage arcing slash. Kephess was facing away from me.

The first time I had dropped 4 circles about to drop the fifth and got one shot for nearly 23k from savage arcing slash. I was clear of the previous purple circle and the smuggler in the way got no damage but yet I was killed. The second time we had a sage healer and a smuggler in between me and the boss, I dropped one circle when to drop the second and then was dead, yet again clear of the purple circle and dead. Yet again nearly 23k with the message savage arcing slash.

So this must be a bug, has anybody else experienced this? It cost us our first Kephess kill as a operations group so not very impressed right now

On a partially related issue:

Last week I was tanking 8 Man HM EC for some new members coming up. We were on Kephess. The other tank was new to the fight and I had died 2 times to the Breath and all that taunt jazz. At first I chalked it up to the new tank. But then something awkward happened.

I had positioned myself on the opposite side of the raid about 25 meters from Kephess (The other tank was not placing the circles nicely and we needed more room). I can guarantee I taunted in the middle of the Breath Cast. The other tank died to Savage Arcing Slash. I was a bit confused and ask to see his logs. I remember reading something in the forums about a taunt delay on Vanguards and since every other time I was within 10 meters of Kephess he did not do this. I closed the distance on the next pull and everything was ok.

I am not sure if there is a taunt application thing going on here or if Kephess is having some weird range bug with his abilities.

Did your sin tank do anything to kephess after he received the knockback and breath of the masters debuff while placing the purple circles? If so then it is a ability called no escape which is where he will "leap" to a person on the hate list that isn't close to him and do a small amount of dmg. This happened to my guild all the time as I would be doing any ranged attacks I had as a PT tank while placing circles to try make sure we beat enrage. We had no idea what it was as I would just drop down dead from savage for no reason. Kephess was turned away and everything so wasn't his cone hit. We figured it out when I tried placing the circles as far from him as possible while still hitting and sometimes it would seem as if Kephess teleported to me in less than a second and be back on the other tank after I was insta killed. After a little research and talking through the fight with other tank we found that it was because I was doing dmg to him. Once I stopped doing anything to Kephess after the knockback we never had a problem again.

Hopefully this helps out

~V