Our operations group is just starting to try KP Nightmare.

This is maybe one of the most exciting, riveting, and intense boss fights for healers that I've encountered. It's definitely the first encounter where I don't feel like I can be even a little sloppy and the challenge is seriously improving my gameplay. This encounter is so much fun!

That said, we still haven't cleared it. We hit it ~5 times late last night before calling it quits and burning through HM. We got through NiM Bonethrasher with zero issues (one-shotted, no deaths), but even working with a very experienced (and mostly Rakata) Sorcerer healer, we're having a very hard time healing through it. I'm hoping for some advice.

Most of the fight is actually fine: we can generally stay far ahead of damage for a good 2 minutes, and then the tank on Jarg starts taking 10-14k hits (Jarg is still above the 40% crazy railshot period). With both of us spamming heals and cleansing constantly, we can keep him up, but the Sorcerer can't maintain the burst without going OOM and I find myself unable to keep my rolling HoTs up. Our tank is getting hit for 50-60% health: it's nearly impossible for us to keep him up -and- heal operation-wide damage.

I'm certain there's a mechanic we're missing. We've tried the following:

DPS Sorno to ~50%, leave a marauder and tank on him.

All DPS switches to Jarg, dps to 0%.

Switch back to Sorno and heal through soft enrage.

We have no tank swaps and no dedicated points for defensive cooldowns.

On our most successful run, we managed to kill Jarg, but lost a tank in the process. With all DPS on Sorno, we managed to get him to 15% before complete wipe. At the switch to Sorno, Sorcerer was almost completely OOM.

My first instinct is that we're just healing lazily (there were many moments where I deviated slightly from optimum performance in the first couple fights), but I'm wondering if there's a way to reduce the incoming burst to our tank on Jarg. Any advice?

If you can have an Assassin/Shadow tank with the 4 piece set bonus tank Jarg, that's optimal. Either way, if healing is an issue on the Jarg tank, the Jarg tank should start trying to stay far enough away from Jarg at all times that his AoE Flame Sweep won't hit him. This is also easiest for an Assassin/Shadow, as all but roughly 2 of their main tanking abilities have 10 meter ranges, and it will make aggro while kiting a non issue. If you do this, Jarg will leap to the tank, in which the tank will move away again (preferably making sure Jarg is away from anyone else in the raid as well), 10-15 seconds later Jarg will leap to the tank again, and the tank will move again, repeating this throughout the fight. Not taking any fire damage is impossible, but avoiding the AoE Flamesweep will make it easier.

From your healing perspective, rolling hots at all times is not good for healing or energy management, your Kolto Injection/Underworld Medicine will hit for a lot and should be used to save the tank in the hard moments, constant hots take so much energy to stack and keep up and don't heal nearly enough to make it worth it. Our Op healers only stack their hots on tanks when they know the tank will be fine on health long enough for them to do it.

Lastly, don't kill 1 of the bosses with a large health deficit between the two, make sure to try to burn them down roughly at the same time. If you're already having healing problems when they're both alive, you're going to make it impossible when you start the soft enrage on one of them.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Didn't see the Empire sig at first, apologize for the Republic terms.

and to make 1 thing more clear but already stated, dps the bosses equally so they die as close as possible to the same time.

watching alot of twitch, melee dps usually go on right boss, range on left boss.

If you can have an Assassin/Shadow tank with the 4 piece set bonus tank Jarg, that's optimal. Either way, if healing is an issue on the Jarg tank, the Jarg tank should start trying to stay far enough away from Jarg at all times that his AoE Flame Sweep won't hit him. This is also easiest for an Assassin/Shadow, as all but roughly 2 of their main tanking abilities have 10 meter ranges, and it will make aggro while kiting a non issue. If you do this, Jarg will leap to the tank, in which the tank will move away again (preferably making sure Jarg is away from anyone else in the raid as well), 10-15 seconds later Jarg will leap to the tank again, and the tank will move again, repeating this throughout the fight. Not taking any fire damage is impossible, but avoiding the AoE Flamesweep will make it easier.

Mmn, yeah, we're working with two Juggernaut tanks, which (apparently) makes this this kind of kiting difficult. The reduced natural resistance is probably not great news, either.

From your healing perspective, rolling hots at all times is not good for healing or energy management, your Kolto Injection/Underworld Medicine will hit for a lot and should be used to save the tank in the hard moments, constant hots take so much energy to stack and keep up and don't heal nearly enough to make it worth it. Our Op healers only stack their hots on tanks when they know the tank will be fine on health long enough for them to do it.

By rolling HoTs, I mean keeping KP up on tanks and sorc healer. It is our most energy efficient heal, barring the AoE heal. I find that during the period where the tank on Jarg is taking huge hits, I switch completely to Kolto Injection/Surgical Probe spamming, with diagnostic scans thrown in. If I keep HoTs up, this is easier and more energy efficient to pull off.

Lastly, don't kill 1 of the bosses with a large health deficit between the two, make sure to try to burn them down roughly at the same time. If you're already having healing problems when they're both alive, you're going to make it impossible when you start the soft enrage on one of them.

Yeah, we've been aiming for less than 20% health differential.

Thanks for response: this is very helpful.

When my guild does this fight with a sorc healer we have everyone in the raid stack on sorno at all time so his aoe heal pretty much keeps all the dps alive. Also keeping jarg pulled away from sorno will stop a good amount of the raid dmg. There is a Dot the Jarg applies, not sure if u can cleanse it but it'd be worth a shot. I'm assuming you are a merc or op healer id say u should be on jarg tank as you are a much stronger single target healer than the sorc

Yep, operative healer. Both healers in the group are cleansing tanks and each other like mad of the DoT.

Focusing exclusively on a single tank for this fight is simply not possible, given the high rate of damage going out. In effective, I wind up focused completely on healing the tank on Jarg, with support from the other healer. Even then, it's almost out of hand.

Your problem is simple, you are missing a mechanic. Tell your tanks to look for the debuff Heat Wave, it increases damage taken. They can cooldown through one heatwave but then they should be forced to tank swap. Once you have more gear you won't need to swap.

Well that's incredibly helpful, thank you. I'm assuming this is applied by Jarg. We'll try to work this into our tactics. Awesome!

Well that's incredibly helpful, thank you. I'm assuming this is applied by Jarg. We'll try to work this into our tactics. Awesome!

Yeah, the "increase fire damage taken" debuff is brutal. In my group, whenever the Jarg tank gets this debuff, we swap tanks. Swap back when the new tank gets the debuff.

Yep, operative healer. Both healers in the group are cleansing tanks and each other like mad of the DoT.

 

Focusing exclusively on a single tank for this fight is simply not possible, given the high rate of damage going out. In effective, I wind up focused completely on healing the tank on Jarg, with support from the other healer. Even then, it's almost out of hand.

By stacking all the dps ranged and melee on sorno(still having ranged attck Jarg) and having the sorc drop his aoe on sorno it should help out a ton...

It is imo the hardest fight in the game after clearing HM EC for the first time our guild went in to NiM KP and were blown away with the amount of dmg that was going out...

On a side note a couple weeks ago when we went in there the healers were asking in vent(we had cleared this many times at this point) why the F*ck is there so much dmg going out i also at the same time couldnt figure out for the life of me why i couldnt guard someone then about 20 seconds after "plan B" i looked over and saw i was in DPS stance i just started laughing and they knew exactly what had happened.... i was cussed out for a good 3 hours from the healers lol

On a side note a couple weeks ago when we went in there the healers were asking in vent(we had cleared this many times at this point) why the F*ck is there so much dmg going out i also at the same time couldnt figure out for the life of me why i couldnt guard someone then about 20 seconds after "plan B" i looked over and saw i was in DPS stance i just started laughing and they knew exactly what had happened.... i was cussed out for a good 3 hours from the healers lol

Heh, this mostly only happens on our drunken operations nights. Those also involve a lot of facepulls and falling into pits. Good times.

Ok this sounds very similar to the strategy we use.

Healers, I used to have my scoundrel on the Sorno tank and had to cross heal the Jarg tank. Against Sorno I found I could almost diagnostic scan my way through with the occasional AoE heal saving my big heals for Jarg's tank. The sorc can then place revivification on himself and the ranged guys to use consumption more often. Finally identify which of the 2 debuffs Jarg applies is the cleansable DOT and don't waste cooldowns on cleanses on the extra damage from fire debuff. The DOT is the explosion looking picture and the increased damage is a flame picture.

You said once you got Jarg down and then Sorno managed to wipe your entire group, how is that possible? Sorno's, if interrupted properly, damage output is not that big and can be easily healed through.

Finally the overall strat we use is to dps them both down evenly to ~40% when Jarg switches to his railshot 1 melee switches over and burns him down before everyone focuses down Sorno, interrupting every single cast he has.

Hope this helps a little, good luck.

It's very important for all DPS to not take any avoidable damage. This includes stanging in AoE heal, contsantly being far away from Jarg, avoiding AoE, minimizing damage from the group pull into the center (and Gunslingers can completely avoid being pulled), using defensive CDs when you get aggro because tank is carbonized, etc. And of course, be fast as lightning on carbonizer probes.

As for the boss targeting, if you have 2 rDPS and 2 melee, and they all are on par with each other, then splitting into 2 groups and targeting each boss separately is fine.