Jump to content

Vallyne

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3

  • Joined

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Vallyne

    Nightmare Kephess, a Guide

    in Flashpoints, Operations, and Heroic Missions

    Posted

    Actually, I don't have a problem (on my shadow tank) holding Kephess during this phase. He does hit very rapidly, which is usually a problem, but he actually doesn't hit fast enough to chew through Kinetic Ward. Since KW remains up, shadow survivability is just as good against Kephess as any other tank would be.

     

    Our raid group runs 2 shadow tanks (I am one of them) also, and we've beaten Kephess just so. With that said, however, afterwards I analyzed the logs and found that our KWs do deplete a lot faster on Kephess sometimes, in a manner that is probably unintended and bugged.

     

    If you look at the log carefully, every time Kephess swings at you post-60% (pre-60% there are other mechanics that makes the log harder to decipher), he doesn't attack once, nor twice (despite being Marauder-like), but FIVE times. The same is true of Terror From Beyond's tentacle attacks too, but that encounter is much easier so it didn't matter much (you may have noticed you lose 1~3 KW charges typically every time the tentacles hit you. Similarly, my guardian tank alt usually gains 1~3 stacks of Courage per hit. Same underlying principle).

     

    See below for a combat log excerpt of the relevant segment, cleaned up and color coded + summary added for emphasis, showing only Kephess attacks and relevant defensive buff gains/losses. Here you will see him attacking 5 times every time, as well as some odd interaction with KW.

     

    21:23:31.465 Vallyne activates Kinetic Ward.

    21:23:31.465 Vallyne gains Kinetic Ward.

     

    21:23:38.175 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:38.175 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack hits Vallyne for 3458 kinetic damage, causing 3458 threat.

    21:23:38.175 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:38.175 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack misses Vallyne, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:38.175 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:38.987 Vallyne gains Shield Overcharge.

     

    21:23:39.755 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack hits Vallyne for 3458 kinetic damage, causing 3458 threat.

    21:23:39.755 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1844 kinetic damage, causing 1844 threat.

    21:23:39.755 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1844 kinetic damage, causing 1844 threat.

    21:23:39.755 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1844 kinetic damage, causing 1844 threat.

    21:23:39.756 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:39.896 Vallyne activates Deflection.

    21:23:39.896 Vallyne gains Deflection.

     

    21:23:41.368 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:41.368 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack hits Vallyne for 3458 kinetic damage, causing 3458 threat.

    21:23:41.369 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:41.369 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1301 kinetic damage, causing 1301 threat.

    21:23:41.369 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:42.873 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:42.873 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:42.873 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:42.873 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1301 kinetic damage, causing 1301 threat. (1301 absorbed)

    21:23:42.873 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:44.459 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:44.459 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:44.460 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:44.460 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:44.460 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:44.998 Vallyne loses Shield Overcharge.

     

    21:23:46.067 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:46.067 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1814 kinetic damage, causing 1814 threat. (1814 absorbed)

    21:23:46.068 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:46.068 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:23:46.068 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

     

    21:23:46.806 Vallyne loses Kinetic Ward.

     

    --------------------------------------------------

    Summary: 20 parries, 6 glances/shields, 1 miss, 3 hits.

     

    Weirdness 1: Shield Overcharge didn't apply to the 3 shielded attacks immediately after (glances for 1844 instead of 1301), perhaps a latency issue, but it was 0.768s apart.

     

    Weirdness 2: Lost Kinetic Ward after only 6 shielded attacks.

     

    This splitting a single attack into 5 smaller attacks under-the-hood is actually a smart thing Bioware did. Instead of giant single hits (e.g. 3458*5 = ~17.2k on my shadow after armor mitigation) that can kill 2-shot me with bad consecutive RNGs, by splitting it into multiple hits, it smoothes out the incoming damage and makes my defensive stats much more reliable. However, it interacts with KW in an unexpected way negatively, in that we can potentially deplete our charges in as fast as 2 swings (i.e. 10 attacks) in ~3s. See another log excerpt below for this exact scenario,

     

    21:24:14.920 Vallyne gains Shield Overcharge .

     

    21:24:16.420 Vallyne activates Kinetic Ward.

    21:24:16.421 Vallyne gains Kinetic Ward.

     

    21:24:17.144 Vallyne activates Shield Boost.

    21:24:17.144 Vallyne gains Shield Boost.

     

    21:24:17.317 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:24:17.317 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:24:17.317 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:24:17.318 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1301 kinetic damage, causing 1301 threat. (1301 absorbed)

    21:24:17.318 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1301 kinetic damage, causing 1301 threat. (1301 absorbed)

     

    21:24:19.175 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1162 kinetic damage, causing 1162 threat. (1162 absorbed)

    21:24:19.175 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1162 kinetic damage, causing 1162 threat. (782 absorbed)

    21:24:19.175 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:24:19.176 Vallyne parries Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack, causing 1 threat.

    21:24:19.176 Warlord Kephess's Melee Attack glances Vallyne for 1162 kinetic damage, causing 1162 threat.

     

    21:24:19.546 Vallyne loses Kinetic Ward

     

    --------------------------------------------------

    Summary: 5 parries, 5 shields/glances, 0 miss, 0 hits

     

    Weirdness 1: Shield Boost didn't apply to the 2 shielded attacks immediately after (glances for 1301 instead of 1162), perhaps a latency issue, since it was only 0.174s apart.

     

    Weirdness 2: Lost Kinetic Ward after only 5 shielded attacks. Lasted 3.125s

     

    Both log excerpts also point to another weirdness, in that I lost all 8 charges of KW but only have shielded 5~6 attacks. These are not singular examples, in a couple other instances I've looked (on my Kephess and TFB logs) I would lose KW buffs after only shielded 5~7 times, all less than 20s after I gained the initial buff.

     

    However, I must also point out that in one instance I did find I shielded 9 times before losing KW, and the 9th attack was in the 3rd set of 5 attacks, so I should have lost the buff between the 2nd and 3rd sets of 5 attacks. This may again be a latency issue, but that means >1.5s delay in logging, seems excessive.

     

    Unfortunately I have to do these log examinations manually, as I don't have an easy automated way to extract the info with some sort of custom parsers. But if anyone has the ability to do so, I encourage you to check your logs accordingly to see if the same applies to your shadow/assassin tanks. Or if you can make a parser to do so, provide it so others can utilize the tool to check too.

     

    Regardless, with my shadow tank's stats, not counting shield overcharge, stim, or CDs, the difference of 20% KW shield chance (4-set bonus) is fairly significant on NIM Kephess fight, because he hits so much harder/faster. On average I would take 13% more damage from Kephess' melee attacks post-60% (all kinetic) if I didn't have KW up. This bug should not apply to Vanguard or Guardian, because their defensive buffs are time based, not charge based. In fact Guardians may actually benefit from this and gain their Courage stacks much faster or more reliably (if spec into it), resulting in cheaper Force Sweep & Bladestorm (tested to be true on TFB, but I have not tanked Kephess NIM with my Guardian alt yet).

     

    Of course Shadow tanks are still viable on Kephess NIM, we've done it with 2 shadow tanks in fact. However, this observation might explain why Shadow tanks do feel squishier on this fight and some other fights. I do believe this is most likely unintended, and thus probably a bug.

×
×
  • Create New...