My guild has been at 3/4 in HM Explosive Conflict for the last 5 weeks. We have been lucky enough to get Kephess down to 15% but made a mistake that cost us. Since then, we have not been able to do so. This is why I say it was luck. I have a question though about the fight itself. After Kephess first jumps down from the walker, during this phase when he jumps into the air, when he lands is there any way to mitigate the bleed that he gives to the tank? I am thinking that if a Sorc is in the group, and places the shield on the tank it should mitigate. Is this possible?

Thanks.

That is what we are doing now. Still not clear though as we have not tried to have a shield placed on the tank who receives the bleed. So again, can it be mitigated or can the shield at least help with the hit?

*EDIT: I am looking for some areas that we could possibly improve on. It is the small things that we are missing. Just not sure what exactly. So anything that could possibly help, is what I am looking to implement as a change in the way we are attempting this fight.

You mitigate it by having one tank taunt the boss when the other gets the DoT

This is exactly what we are doing but, the first tank that takes the hit when he lands, takes the damage. There is no mitigation at the moment. After the hit, the other tank is currently taunting off.

He'll apply it after he does his first jump. Preemptively pop a damage mitigating CD. You'll survive the burst. When you see him running up to you after that jump *hit awesome cooldown* before he hits you.

Profit.

You can see me do it here at roughly 5 minutes in (though I am a GCD late). Healer bubbles me while he's in the air. He lands, re-establish aggro, hit your damage reduction CD. Healer has me targeted, so you can see he applies it on the first attack after the jump.

He'll apply it after he does his first jump. Preemptively pop a damage mitigating CD. You'll survive the burst. When you see him running up to you after that jump *hit awesome cooldown* before he hits you.

 

Profit.

 

 

You can see me do it here at roughly 5 minutes in (though I am a GCD late). Healer bubbles me while he's in the air. He lands, re-establish aggro, hit your damage reduction CD. Healer has me targeted, so you can see he applies it on the first attack after the jump.

Thank you for that link. I will indeed suggest placing that bubble on the tanks. It does seem to mitigate some of the damage. Also, love the arrangement of the music. Nice choice.

Np, and ty.

Bubble gives you ~4k splash, just get it applied during his in the air phase. It helps for that initial burst. After which you'll be fine.

All the Sorc shield is, is a preemptive heal. It will help by absorbing some of the damage but otherwise it isn't a huge difference. The DoT is internal damage so it can't really be mitigated, the best you can do is tank swap when the DoT is applied to spread the damage across both tanks. However, if you have an Assassin tank they could pop Resilience to reduce the damage for 5 seconds.

Do you mean force shroud?

All the Sorc shield is, is a preemptive heal. It will help by absorbing some of the damage but otherwise it isn't a huge difference. The DoT is internal damage so it can't really be mitigated, the best you can do is tank swap when the DoT is applied to spread the damage across both tanks. However, if you have an Assassin tank they could pop Resilience to reduce the damage for 5 seconds.

Disagree.

And the problem they are having is the initial application of the bleed, which happens when he lands during the last bomber phase. You can soak a large portion of that damage, and give your healers time to flip from bomber heals, to healing the tank.

After that point there really is not even a need to spread the damage. Your healing output is the same. Have your healers focus on your Keph tank and you win. The only point anyone takes any damage after the final bomber is during his purple circle of doom. After which no one else even requires heals.

So summary time correct?

1. Kephess jumps in the air.

2. Kephess lands. Woe to those in his red circle.

3. Kephess suddenly becomes angry at you because you have taunted.

4. Kephess applies his bleed.

5. Repeat until 60% and the bleed is no longer a part of the equation.

There is no need for a tank swap because of the DOT. Again, healing output is still the same. So long as your tank has more than 13k hp, your focused healing is greater than the damage Keph can put out in a GCD. Adding the tank swap just adds clutter to your strat. If it works for you, fine. But really not required at all.

The only time where your healers attention is split is as mentioned previously when the bomber is still alive and hurting people. Thus, when Kephess lands, and your healers are just finishing topping people up from the dead or soon to be dead bomber, pop your cooldown to ease that transition. Think of it as lube. After that transition no healers worth their salt will have any problem healing one target.

Shout out to Nursejen, Thorriin, Riivanna, and Uldo for being healers capable of this task. Some of which were in Columi gear when they healed Keph (HM) for the first time and somehow managed.

~~~~~~

Edit: Which CD's do you mean?

Shadow

1. Resilience - http://www.torhead.com/ability/dEsVsc4/resilience

Guardian

1. Warding Call - http://www.torhead.com/ability/1fehEMv/warding-call

2. Saber Ward - http://www.torhead.com/ability/5TCbWzd/saber-ward

Vanguard

1. Reactive Shield - http://www.torhead.com/ability/g4iOfPW/reactive-shield

I would say that the tank swap for the bleed should be a matter of preference for the healers (I downed Kephess HM with both methods).

Indeed the healing output is the same, but swapping the tank has pros and cons:

pros:

- the health pool of the tank(s) is somewhat doubled

- the number of tanking CDs is doubled, so more "oh ****!" buttons (but it does not equate to doubling the time as the two tanks CDs could overlap or even be used simultaneously while one bleeds and the other is being hit by Kephess)

the end result is that it gives breathing room for the healers to have a bigger health pool to heal.

cons:

- healing two tanks forces the healers to juggle their targets, while having only one tank allows the healers to mindlessly spam their big heals.

- if there is a lack of communication or coordination, the two healers may both focus the same tank at the same time and leave the other tank dry to die while overhealing the first

so my advice is to try both methods and ask your healers which one they're more comfortable with. It boils down to their playstyle.

The Shadow/Assassin 100% Force/Tech resistance one. Resilience/Force Shroud. None of the other CDs are particularly effective against Force/Tech (40% from Warding Call, 25% Int/Ele resist from Saber Ward and Reactive Shield). I just mixed up the Imp class with the Pub ability.

Also it isn't a matter of how much damage Kephess puts out in 1 GCD. Its a matter of how much damage he can put out between heals. Which can get pretty spread out with Sorc/Sage. Imagine: HoT -> Noble Sac -> Deliverance. 5.5s between noticeable heals. If you just have your healers spamming GCD length heals that a recipe for running out of force/energy/ammo.

One thing to remember about Sorc bubble is that it is also their best 'burst' heal as well as being preemptive. If the tank is getting the DoT while they have the deionized debuff and dying before it falls off, then you should consider holding the bubble for that phase. It doesn't matter if its at the start or after the DoT is applied, the result is the same. Ideally, you want the tank to eat the DoT in the period of time between deionized falling off and the bubble falling off, thereby allowing a new bubble to be applied immediately. Unfortunately this is tough to manage.

What the tank swap DOES accomplish is to split the incoming damage across 2 HP pools. Noticeably lowering the DTPS of the tank, doubling the effect of a Scoundrel HoTs and any AoE heals. Lowers the incoming 'burst' from Kephess but requires the healers to pay attention to 2 targets, 1 of whom isn't really at risk of death. If they are having issues with that phase of the fight and don't wish to use their CDs (which I would assume they don't if they are asking here for a method of reducing incoming damage), then a tank swap is the answer.

Again, all pre-casting sorc bubble does is provide a preemptive heal. It's not a bad thing, but the mitigation from it make no difference if it is cast at 100% or 5% aside from 1 GCD.

Edit: Just to clarify, we don't use the tank swap method, but we also don't have an issue with the bleed causing too much initial damage and prefer to save CDs from GotM.

Imagine: HoT -> Noble Sac -> Deliverance. 5.5s between noticeable heals. If you just have your healers spamming GCD length heals that a recipe for running out of force/energy/ammo.

 

One thing to remember about Sorc bubble is that it is also their best 'burst' heal as well as being preemptive. If the tank is getting the DoT while they have the deionized debuff and dying before it falls off, then you should consider holding the bubble for that phase. It doesn't matter if its at the start or after the DoT is applied, the result is the same. Ideally, you want the tank to eat the DoT in the period of time between deionized falling off and the bubble falling off, thereby allowing a new bubble to be applied immediately. Unfortunately this is tough to manage.

...Ok.

ONE - if your healer actually throws a NS into their healing rotation at a point where increased heals are needed due to an increase in damage...as opposed to the many other opportunities during the fight where it would be more logically sound to use... (because it isn't needed all the time) ..then there is nothing that can be said to fix that type of stupid.

TWO - As for the rest of that..... Honestly...

Missing the point entirely.

They are having problems with the initial transition. When heals are split between bomber, and Kephess tank. When Keph does his jump, and they are finishing off the bomber this is the only time where heals are split at all between the tank and anything else with a health bar. If they are having problems with that transition the preemptive bubble will give them ~4k extra. Add in the cooldown and it truly makes the fight easy. Every other Jump -> Land -> Bleed will have both healers available the entire time.

After that point -> 60% it's a matter of preference. If you need to swap tanks to spread CD's for the 3-4 bleeds you'll be facing, that's understandable. To spread the damage around? Unnecessary.

Also it isn't a matter of how much damage Kephess puts out in 1 GCD. Its a matter of how much damage he can put out between heals. Which can get pretty spread out with Sorc/Sage. Imagine: HoT -> Noble Sac -> Deliverance. 5.5s between noticeable heals. If you just have your healers spamming GCD length heals that a recipe for running out of force/energy/ammo.

The GCD comment refers to how paltry your actual HP need to be to tank Kephess. If you had a 14k HP tank, you could heal him through Kephess as that is more HP than his largest spike (8 man). Every tank is going to be over that mark considerably. Further more, and I'm assuming you've done this fight successfully, you know that you very very rarely see that type of damage ever. You do not need close to anything resembling GCD heal spam. Any standard tank will never be in danger with two healers watching his healthbar and healing without mental deficiency.

Doubling your effective health pool does not matter as your healers whatever their rotation is higher than Kephess damage + Bleed. If it wasn't it wouldn't matter what your health pool was it would be a losing battle. Your two healers > than that damage by far. Without spam.

One thing to remember about Sorc bubble is that it is also their best 'burst' heal as well as being preemptive. If the tank is getting the DoT while they have the deionized debuff and dying before it falls off, then you should consider holding the bubble for that phase. It doesn't matter if its at the start or after the DoT is applied, the result is the same. Ideally, you want the tank to eat the DoT in the period of time between deionized falling off and the bubble falling off, thereby allowing a new bubble to be applied immediately. Unfortunately this is tough to manage.

Apply the bubble while Kephess is in the air. It's not trickery. He applies the dot on his first attack after he lands.

What the tank swap DOES accomplish is to split the incoming damage across 2 HP pools. Noticeably lowering the DTPS of the tank, doubling the effect of a Scoundrel HoTs and any AoE heals. Lowers the incoming 'burst' from Kephess but requires the healers to pay attention to 2 targets, 1 of whom isn't really at risk of death. If they are having issues with that phase of the fight and don't wish to use their CDs (which I would assume they don't if they are asking here for a method of reducing incoming damage), then a tank swap is the answer.

Reiterating again. Unless your tank is in recruit gear, they have the hit point pool required to survive the largest burst possible in a worst case scenario. You do not need any larger hit point pool at all to spread the damage. Doubling HoTs or using an AoE heal is a waste of time (Double casting HoT's), or Power (AOE).

Again, if you don't believe me look at the video. It's not hard, and easily repeatable.

The first tank that takes kephis during bomber can mitigate 100% of kephis's damage by simply kiting him. I have done this on my shadow and gaurdian. You simply taunt then run in a wide circle around the room while the party finishes the bomber. You can even throw some ranged dmg on the bomber if you have it.

If you tank swap, which you should be because it is a safer strategy, you can have the second tank kite while you burn the walker.

Why tank swap? Besides the benefits explained above, It gives the healers some time to throw some dps on the bombers and walker.

Thank you all for the input. I have already mentioned to my guild regarding the bubbling while he is in the air. I will also mention regarding Force Shroud. Force Shroud, I actually asked the usual Sin tank last night if that can be used to help mitigate or not. He never tried it. So I was more so brain storming in a way to find out what we are missing.

I am trying to take things step by step as it seems that everything else we are blowing through with no issues. Trying to trouble shoot where we are falling apart at and why. The third bomber should be the last one with our group make up due to the amount of dps we have in the group. Having the walker down to under 15% by the time the pulsar droids were coming out was a huge help.

We will continue with the tank swap at the time of the jump/bleed phase until we can get this little thing ironed out.

Again, appreciate all of the input.

I can't believe people are advocating not tank swapping. That's ridiculous. Savage Wounding ticks for more damage than Kephess himself is doing with direct attacks in that phase. Can you heal through it? Sure. Should you? No. You increase the risk (especially if your healing composition lacks burst, i.e. two sages) for absolutely no benefit. There is absolutely no reason not to tank swap on Kephess' DoT application, unless your healers and tanks are unable to accomplish challenging tasks such as tying their own shoes or identifying right from left.

It actually sounds like you are the one that has a difficult time with the "challenging" task of healing/tanking through the dreaded DoT. Lol. Why it is even enough of a concern to waste the energy of the other tank having click his taunt is beyond me. Honestly. It's nothing to tank though, nothing to heal through...even with those dreaded sage healers!. lol I'm a sage healer and I can heal through that if need be by myself...and believe me - if it was in some way irritating to do so I would let my raid know.

I guess this only applies however if you possess enough common sense to bubble the tank appropriately and not use your NS as part of your healing rotation at inappropriate times.

 

Why tank swap? Besides the benefits explained above, It gives the healers some time to throw some dps on the bombers and walker.

Yes - and if your DPS is really that horrid...then I guess you will need to find alternative ways to make up for where they lack.

Sorry Rehneu - none of my rant was helpful to your post at all. I couldn't help myself. I hope you have better luck on your next Kephess run and that whatever strat you use works well for your raid.

Sorry Rehneu - none of my rant was helpful to your post at all. I couldn't help myself. I hope you have better luck on your next Kephess run and that whatever strat you use works well for your raid.

No worries. I too hope we can finally get this PITA down. Think I mentioned, it has now been 6 weeks (tomorrow makes it 6) since we have started to try to down him. It is frustrating and I am certain it is small things that is keeping us from completing it. I want my new ride already! lol

I can't believe people are advocating not tank swapping. That's ridiculous. Savage Wounding ticks for more damage than Kephess himself is doing with direct attacks in that phase. Can you heal through it? Sure. Should you? No. You increase the risk (especially if your healing composition lacks burst, i.e. two sages) for absolutely no benefit. There is absolutely no reason not to tank swap on Kephess' DoT application, unless your healers and tanks are unable to accomplish challenging tasks such as tying their own shoes or identifying right from left.

This is either very ill-conceived, or very misleading. The issue is that regardless of whether you tank swap or not, you will still have to heal through the DoT. The amount of damage going around does not change, unless you specifically alternate tank cooldowns for each one. If you do not, then your healers have to do the same amount on either one target or two, in which case the *only* benefit to tank swapping is the longer grace period before a tank hits zero health. Remember that no one else in the entire raid is taking damage at this point, so if your healers seriously cannot keep up with a DoT that ticks every three seconds, they have no business being in EC.

If you *do* alternate tank cooldowns, then there is some utility in swapping. However, it is much more likely that you are having trouble healing through it for some other reason. Are your healers wasting time topping people who won't take any more damage until Kephess hits 60%, for instance? Or are they, as described in the farcical post up the page, hitting Noble Sacrifice while the DoT is on the tank? There are a myriad of far simpler and more logical ways to deal with this than tank swapping.

It is also worth remembering that the DoT will only happen 3-4 times. Any more than that and you've already wiped; you just don't know it.

I would also like to reiterate what Nursejen said above: if undue stress is being put on the healers, she *would* let us know in no uncertain terms ;P

Remember as well that we are discussing 8-man, not 16-man. If you do 16-man, you can expect larger spikes, and mitigating them is more of an issue.

I have healed this fight on hard mode in columi gear. The DoT is worth about 8-9k extra healing per healer, over 9 seconds. The trick is providing yourself a buffer for the first one after the bomber dies. Bubbling the tank and having him pop a cooldown for that first DoT helps immensely, as does the realization that no one else will need any healing whatsoever until Kephess hits 60%.. Do not take the difficulty of the first one and extrapolate the need for a more complicated strategy than is really necessary.

To the OP, good luck with the fight I hope you will try both ways and do whatever gives you the most success.

what i like:

have a designated tank with designated pocket healer deal with kephess while the other healer keeps the group up and dps's the bomber and walker. the tank on kephess can pop a cd or two when at 50% health after taking the dot while the teams downs the walker.

in which case the *only* benefit to tank swapping is the longer grace period before a tank hits zero health.

Bingo. And this is far more of a benefit than any justification that's been suggested for not tank swapping (read: none whatsoever).

I think it's especially bemusing that some posters are falling over themselves to explain how ****** they are because it's so easy to heal through Kephess' attacks plus Savage Wounding (yes, we're so impressed you can perform a simple healing rotation). I put it to you that if you can't deal with a simple tank swap that provides more margin for error and breathing room on the part of the healers, you have no business being in HM.

Let's be clear: the point here is to give the OP every possible advantage in order to clear Kephess, not talk about how awesome we are and how easy healing is.

I put it to you that if you can't deal with a simple tank swap that provides more margin for error and breathing room on the part of the healers, you have no business being in HM.

If your healers cannot heal through that DoT on one person, when they have no one else to heal at all, they have no business being in hard mode. Or if your tank has so little health that they can go from full to dead that quickly, *they* have no business being in hard mode.

No tank swap: healers focus heal one person who pops one cooldown once; the rest of the group can focus on the walker. Tank swap: Healers heal two people, swapping and alternating cooldowns. It's amazing that you honestly think the first is the more complicated strategy. It isn't. The second one just moves more of the strategy onto the tanks to compensate for either shoddy healers or weak tank builds.

If the OP is suffering from one of those two conditions, then it is entirely possible that tank swapping is the best way for them to do it. However, if they are not, then there is nothing wrong with reducing the number of people who have to pay attention at that point in the fight. This is an example of excess strategy trying to make up for good execution of the raid members' classes (in particular, the tank and two healers).

For that matter, imagining that we have any trouble with tank swaps, given that we got past earlier bosses, shows quite clearly that you aren't thinking things through. In this case it is merely a question of whether you want more for the tanks to do (and no cooldowns to pop if things go bad later), or healers who are disinclined to take micro naps during boss fights.

Edit: I got some specific numbers from our tank and healer:

Assuming no cooldown is popped, the skill that lands the DoT does 11000, and the DoT does 26400 over 18 seconds to our tank. That means each healer is responsible for 5500 initially (read: almost completely absorbed by the sage's bubble, or the expected return of one deliverance), and then they need to do 13200 healing over 18 seconds each. That means 733 heals per second. Last our sage tried, she could do over 1700 HPS, and that is sustained, not burst. That hardly needs a greater margin of error. More specifically, one healing trance has an expected return over 6780, or half of the total healing they need to do to counter the DoT. It is true that Kephess is also doing damage during this time, but it is laughably low and also shieldable.

 

I think it's especially bemusing that some posters are falling over themselves to explain how ****** they are because it's so easy to heal through Kephess' attacks plus Savage Wounding (yes, we're so impressed you can perform a simple healing rotation). I put it to you that if you can't deal with a simple tank swap that provides more margin for error and breathing room on the part of the healers, you have no business being in HM.

 

Let's be clear: the point here is to give the OP every possible advantage in order to clear Kephess, not talk about how awesome we are and how easy healing is.

I'm glad you are impressed . But really it's nothing...and apparently something that some healers are not capable of. But at the end of the day..not something I said for people to be impressed with..since many many many healers can do it...just the realization that it can be done..and is being done quite easily.

"I put it to you that if you can't deal with a simple tank swap that provides more margin for error and breathing room on the part of the healers, you have no business being in HM."

Gosh darnit..you caught me. Afterall..tank swapping doesn't take place anywhere else during that fight that needs to be managed. And let me use your words..."it provides more margin for error and breathing room on the part of the healers". ....well.. if the healers are capable of doing it without any trouble for them or danger to the rest of the ops group...then why use a strat that...again..your words.... provides more margin for error. Seems rather illogical to me.

and ouch...I don't belong in HM? aww ..but I am..and have been for quite some time. But I do owe it to my awesome Ops group. Thanks for playing