Were you casting on yourself? HT does consume Conveyance if self-cast, but not on any other target.

 

If not then they ninja-fixed it.

It was on Qyzen. Who knows.

Anyway, I think we've covered the basics of "How to Tank Heal on a Sage." On the Kephess fight, however, something really good to consider is "when is it okay to spam the bejeezies out of consumption/whateverthesillylifetapbuttoniscalledforrepublic." This will allow you to afford to be inefficient at heavy throughput times and not have to use GCDs for tapping. Key times include:

• As the last of the initial 3 droids is being killed, there tends to not be much healing to do. I tap a few times, but it's really important to not overdo it--the bomber has it out for me and I've nearly died a few times when he first spawns. Better to be safe here.
   
  
• If your raid is fine on walker dps, it's safe to get all of your force back during walker down phases.
   
  
• During the pulsar droids, you can usually get a few taps out. Just drop a puddle, bubble & rejuv the rail shot tank, and tap away.
  

It was on Qyzen. Who knows.

 

Anyway, I think we've covered the basics of "How to Tank Heal on a Sage." On the Kephess fight, however, something really good to consider is "when is it okay to spam the bejeezies out of consumption/whateverthesillylifetapbuttoniscalledforrepublic." This will allow you to afford to be inefficient at heavy throughput times and not have to use GCDs for tapping. Key times include:

 

• As the last of the initial 3 droids is being killed, there tends to not be much healing to do. I tap a few times, but it's really important to not overdo it--the bomber has it out for me and I've nearly died a few times when he first spawns. Better to be safe here.
   
  
• If your raid is fine on walker dps, it's safe to get all of your force back during walker down phases.
   
  
• During the pulsar droids, you can usually get a few taps out. Just drop a puddle, bubble & rejuv the rail shot tank, and tap away.
  

Hmmm interesting to note I have this very bad habit of always hitting it right after Innervate/Healing Trance, keeping my force near full until Kephess where suddenly all my focus is on the Tank... Dunno if that's a good idea =\

Hmmm interesting to note I have this very bad habit of always hitting it right after Innervate/Healing Trance, keeping my force near full until Kephess where suddenly all my focus is on the Tank... Dunno if that's a good idea =\

If no one's dying, you can obviously spare the GCD. Not much more to say really. I'll NS whenever Resplendence procs in OPs, so long as I have the time.

If no one's dying, you can obviously spare the GCD. Not much more to say really. I'll NS whenever Resplendence procs in OPs, so long as I have the time.

phew so I'm not the only want obsessed with trying to max out force bar if possible ^^

If no one's dying, you can obviously spare the GCD. Not much more to say really. I'll NS whenever Resplendence procs in OPs, so long as I have the time.

The problem is, at least in 16 man, I find that sometimes I just don't have the time. So after I've skipped a couple over a spam of time, my force bar isn't at full. I mean, it's not EMPTY, but it's not full. My emphasis here is that I always want to go into the Kephess phase with it 100% full and there are good times to "fix" any backup you've had. Using it on every proc during the last phase just isn't always an option and if the guy who originally asked for advice is having trouble with his tanks dying, then he might not have time either.

The problem is, at least in 16 man, I find that sometimes I just don't have the time. So after I've skipped a couple over a spam of time, my force bar isn't at full. I mean, it's not EMPTY, but it's not full. My emphasis here is that I always want to go into the Kephess phase with it 100% full and there are good times to "fix" any backup you've had. Using it on every proc during the last phase just isn't always an option and if the guy who originally asked for advice is having trouble with his tanks dying, then he might not have time either.

Well, yes, but I thought that was kind of implied by elements of my sentence, such as "If no one's dying" and "if I can spare the time". I certainly wasn't thinking of the final phase, since we've already established how healing intensive it is.

I'm not sure if we're disagreeing or not

At any rate, the point I was actually trying to communicate, but didn't do very well, was that if I have Resplendence, I will not take my health bar into consideration when evaluating whether or not to use NS. So if I have 20% health and <90% force when Resplendence procs, then I will use it if I can spare the GCD. Of course, there are obvious exceptions for unavoidable raid-wide damage phases and then there's the fact I can't remember the last time (if ever) I was sitting around with 20% health evaluating NS, but there's an academic point buried in there somewhere.

Definitely not disagreeing I think I just wanted to reiterate the point since we HAVE been talking about the last phase of Kephess and I'd hate for somebody to be blindly hitting NS on procs in that final phase and be like, "Well these people on the forums told me to! Why'd the tank die?! :("

>> lol

What is Kephess' enrage timer at, after he gets to 60%?

We tried him for the 1st time last night on HM and were able to get him down to about 15% before he enraged.

Looking back on things, our problem seemed to be the tank on Kephess was moving him around too much, and the 2 sentinels in the group were not able to keep full dps on him.

Huge Hugs and Thanks to all the Sages who have responded so far!

 

Okay so let me summarize the takeaway and see if I got it right

 

1) Rejuv should always be on

2) Bubble whenever possible

3) Trance saves lives which are low, don't be afraid to use it

4) Deliverance to start casting even when health bar is full/near full

5) f*** Benevolence

 

Did i get that about right?

#2 I'm gonna have to disagree. Especially on heavy tank damage fights like Kephess you need to reserve the bubble for the heavy burst dmg. Once he uses arching slash or whichever ability hits for 7-8k I use bubble-rejuv-innervate to recover. If you don't have the bubble for this burst you can lose the tank if big heals aren't already incoming.

As far as when to tap(noble sac/consumption) during kephess encounter. I tap regularly throughout but I find it necessary to use it 3-4 times at two points of the fight. First, following the 1st walker burn phase right before the adds spawn I will tap to about 50% health, shield/rejuv first AoE taunt tank and then drop aoe heal to top myself/mitigate raid dmg. Second, during the droid phase I will tap 3 times on both the 2nd and 3rd transition once we are all safely in position and an aoe heal is down. The reason for choosing these two points of the fight is because they require an aoe heal for the raid and they follow a walker dps phase. I do about 100k dmg on this fight by helping burn bombers and dpsing during walker burn phases 1&2, so it is especially force intensive for me and tapping following the walker burns is a must. If done correctly, I go into the kephess 100-60 phase with about 70% force.

#2 I'm gonna have to disagree. Especially on heavy tank damage fights like Kephess you need to reserve the bubble for the heavy burst dmg. Once he uses arching slash or whichever ability hits for 7-8k I use bubble-rejuv-innervate to recover. If you don't have the bubble for this burst you can lose the tank if big heals aren't already incoming.

This is actually an excellent point I hadn't considered. Force Armor is our second highest HPCT (after Salvation) and edges out critted Deliverance for HPS; more importantly, it's instant. Given the relatively long duration of Force Imbalanced, saving it for major spikes (i.e. the tank has <25% health) is probably the wisest approach.

So combined with what I discussed over in the Sage forums, if you want to max throughput then just use Rejuv>Trance>Deliv as your rotation; when you choose to cast Force Armor, replace your next Deliverance with Benevolence.

Of course, you'll have to coordinate with your other sage(s) for this approach.

This is actually an excellent point I hadn't considered. Force Armor is our second highest HPCT (after Salvation) and edges out critted Deliverance for HPS; more importantly, it's instant. Given the relatively long duration of Force Imbalanced, saving it for major spikes (i.e. the tank has <25% health) is probably the wisest approach.

The biggest spikes come from dmg that the tank takes when he hasn't been taking dmg for a while (i.e. Empowered Slash which hits for ~12k happens after our tank hasn't been taking any hits from Kephess for ~13 seconds). For this reason, knowing who your next tank is going to be and already having a bubble running on them to start ticking away at the debuff allows you to eat off 4.5k of that 12k and be actively pre-casting for the damage you know WILL be coming. Force Armor is amazing HPS/HPCT and HPF, so why not get the most out of it? By being wise with your bubbles on Kephess and getting the ball rolling well before hand, you have a bubble ready to go to help eat some of the dot damage.

I spent like 2 hours tonight going through logs to see if there was an exact ideal way to handle this. It turns out... if you only have 1 sage solo healing the tank on 16 man Hard Mode... the tank will die without cooldowns whether you use the bubble before or after. The difference in the numbers ends up being pretty insignificant.

My point here is: Use the bubble. It doesn't matter what your strategy is--to use it as an emergency heal, or to use it preemptively. The point is to use it. The 100-60% Kephess tank damage is no joke and playing the way that you're most comfortable with will probably make a bigger difference than casting your bubble at the exact right second.

Also: Savage Wounding is the devil.

My point here is: Use the bubble. It doesn't matter what your strategy is--to use it as an emergency heal, or to use it preemptively. The point is to use it. The 100-60% Kephess tank damage is no joke and playing the way that you're most comfortable with will probably make a bigger difference than casting your bubble at the exact right second.

True. Up until now I've been recasting it every time Force Imbalanced falls off the tank, instead of considering that 'saving' it, as it were, would be a better approach.

Also: Savage Wounding is the devil.

Kephess is the devil in general. He and Nightmare Pilgrim are probably going to kill me with a heart attack long before I get the chance to grow old.

The biggest spikes come from dmg that the tank takes when he hasn't been taking dmg for a while (i.e. Empowered Slash which hits for ~12k happens after our tank hasn't been taking any hits from Kephess for ~13 seconds). For this reason, knowing who your next tank is going to be and already having a bubble running on them to start ticking away at the debuff allows you to eat off 4.5k of that 12k and be actively pre-casting for the damage you know WILL be coming. Force Armor is amazing HPS/HPCT and HPF, so why not get the most out of it? By being wise with your bubbles on Kephess and getting the ball rolling well before hand, you have a bubble ready to go to help eat some of the dot damage.

/agree. The expection to my rule of keeping the bubble in your pocket is when you can anticipate a spike. This is a lesson most good sorcs/sages have learned innately a la bonethrasher swipes and Soa ballz.

I guess my point is that before resurgence/force-bending was fixed we could heal through any burst with the rejuv-innervate-dark infusion or rejuv-DIx2 combos, now that those are gone the shield becomes our primary tool for mitigating burst whether it's used proactively or reactively.

I have found that the few times kephess has dropped our tank I had used my bubble too early and allowed it to be eaten by boss melee damage right before the burst. My strategy is aimed to avoid the situation where the tank takes unexpected burst while bubble/innervate are on CD and he dies before a 2.3s DI can land.

What is Kephess' enrage timer at, after he gets to 60%?

 

We tried him for the 1st time last night on HM and were able to get him down to about 15% before he enraged.

 

Looking back on things, our problem seemed to be the tank on Kephess was moving him around too much, and the 2 sentinels in the group were not able to keep full dps on him.

120 seconds. And if you have Kephess moving... besides when he jumps from tank to tank... he's moving to much.

Ignore the suggestions to kite him at ANY point during the fight. There is no need.

Nice thread... just gl filtering out the people who are wrong

The only time I felt safe to really use Consumption/Republic equivalent is when Kephess is past the 60% stage. During that time, no one should be taking damage except the tanks. I have let my health dip to something like 10% on that stage before hehe.

I always tend to be short on force, especially right before the Kephess 60% Gift of the Master stage. I do help with the DPS on the bomber and walker alot so maybe that could be why.

Anyways, here a sorc healer perspective of the fight

I've downed Kephess on 8-man story mode a few times. Some of the mechanics mentioned are new to me...are any of them 8-man vs 16-man differences, or are they all story mode vs hard mode differences?

bumping this question since it got lost in the noise...what are the differences between story mode and hard mode, and between 8-man and 16-man?