Warlord Kephess Hard Mode Strategy Guide

[Kihra]

I put together a video that shows Methodical's Warlord Kephess 16-man Hard Mode strategy for those who have an interest in learning more about the fight on that level of difficulty.

 

 

 

If you have any questions about the fight, we're happy to answer them. You can leave comments on YouTube or in this forum thread.

 

Enjoy!

[antonmb]

A couple of reminders for healers:

 

One of the most healing intensive phases in the encounter is Phase 4 when Kephess jumps down while still managing the last bomber to do your final burn on Warstrider. Dealing with the first rocket from the Bomber, damage from the one defusing the bomb, and red circles can overwhelm a group. Healers can use relics and cooldowns here to compensate.

 

Another critical aspect here for healers is that before "Gift of the Masters" it's important to make sure the entire group is relatively topped off. Having people pop a health pot here also helps. If not, you'll lose several people during the run out. GotM will do a total of 7 ticks of 4016 each, with the last doing a triple for 12k, so thats a total of 36k. If you run out without speed boosts, a player should take around 4 ticks for 16k damage. So Sages/Sorcs can also help here by pre-casting a bubble on players with lower health pools just in case.

Edited May 31, 2012 by antonmb

[Iwipe]

Very nice video, and love the music.

 

Here are some of of the additions that my guild use to make the fight easier (8m HM). We have no tanks that can yank bombers nor any marauders/sentinels so the fight its a bit harder than us then necessary.

 

1. When the person with the bomb gets pulled up, you can have a sage/sorc use their pull ability as soon that bomb person gets a line attached to them. This will allow them to take less damage and able to join in DPS on the walker faster.

 

2. For the Transdosian adds, we move the entire raid and one tank to the back of the walker. This will us to completely avoid all saturation fire from the walker and DPS freely. The other tank pin down the warrior out in the field and dps him down and join us once all the warriors are dead.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/hmkephess1.jpg

 

3. For the railshot phase of the pulsar droids, we all stack up on the pulsar droid we are DPSing and it seems to prevent the railshots except during transition (i.e. running between droids or running to the first droid from the walker). We tried the tank 4m thingie you guys did but didn't work for us (maybe we didn't execute properly). When we are burning down the walker a 2nd time in right before the pulsar droids spawn, I always bubble the squishy people (i.e. all the DPS and healers). This way, even if they do eat railshot, they can still survive.

 

4. As already mentioned, the stage where Kephess drops down and before his 60% Gift of the Master phase is probably one of the hardest phase to heal through. Not only you have to deal with Kephess's damage on the tanking tank, he also put an extremely nasty DoT. We tank swap on this phase as soon one tank gets the DoT to lessen the damage. I always tell my tanks to use their cooldowns in this stage rather than the last 60% as it is easier to heal.

 

5. For Gift of the Masters we have a sniper ready at close to 60% and then pop the shield right before everyone gets pulled in. Sniper doesn't get pulled in due to their ability (forgot what it was called). The shield is placed between Kephess and the wall we are running to so as we un to the wall, we run into the shield and reduce some the damage of the ticks.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/kephess2.jpg

 

6. After 60% no one should be taking damage except the tanks, so healers can just focus on the tanks and ignore everyone else as this phase is still fairly intensive. To hep meet the tight enrage timer, pop all the DPS cooldowns, adrenals, and healers help DPS whenever they get a chance. The enrage timer doesn't start until Kephess does Gift of the Masters so you can take ages to get to 60% and once he does GOTM, burst him down with everything you got.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Iwipe

[Jawgust]

Another critical aspect here for healers is that before "Gift of the Masters" it's important to make sure the entire group is relatively topped off. Having people pop a health pot here also helps. If not, you'll lose several people during the run out. GotM will do a total of 7 ticks of 4016 each, with the last doing a triple for 12k, so thats a total of 36k. If you run out without speed boosts, a player should take around 4 ticks for 16k damage. So Sages/Sorcs can also help here by pre-casting a bubble on players with lower health pools just in case.

 

Our group has 2 sorc heals and we have no issues with this part. We keep everyone topped off pretty well and bubble the entire party just before the purple aoe thing, then have our Marauder cast predation when it comes down. Haven't lost anyone on this phase yet.

[antonmb]

Great points Dulfy, couldn't agree more. We could try your strategy during the adds phase behind the walker, although we've found that where Saturation Fire lands during this phase is the same every time and predictable; but it should be an interesting optimization for groups having problems with Fire. Thanks!

 

6. After 60% no one should be taking damage except the tanks, so healers can just focus on the tanks and ignore everyone else as this phase is still fairly intensive. To hep meet the tight enrage timer, pop all the DPS cooldowns, adrenals, and healers help DPS whenever they get a chance. The enrage timer doesn't start until Kephess does Gift of the Masters so you can take ages to get to 60% and once he does GOTM, burst him down with everything you got.

 

Same thing with us. Our Sages just lay down an AOE right after GotM and let that handle the healing since, as you've mentioned, the raid shouldn't be taking damage anymore during this phase. And when they do, due to a missed taunt or what not, they'd practically get one-shot anyway so it hardly matters.

Edited May 31, 2012 by antonmb

[antonmb]

Our group has 2 sorc heals and we have no issues with this part. We keep everyone topped off pretty well and bubble the entire party just before the purple aoe thing, then have our Marauder cast predation when it comes down. Haven't lost anyone on this phase yet.

 

Right, as long as the raid is topped off, or at least close to it, it shouldn't be an issue. However, if your group somehow eats a nasty cleave just before this and goes into that phase with 60-50% or less depending on health pools, they just won't survive it. Like I mentioned, without speed boosts, it's a straight 16k damage on Light Armor, while with a speed boost, it's 12k, as the puddle ticks for 4k per second. So keeping the group topped off before this is critical, but probably more important for cloth wearers or those without defensive cooldowns or low health pools. I can imagine this being more important in Nightmare too and will probably hurt for much more.

 

Similarly, we use Transcendence for this phase as well, so that's a good reminder for all. Thanks!

Edited May 31, 2012 by antonmb

[Kihra]

1. When the person with the bomb gets pulled up, you can have a sage/sorc use their pull ability as soon that bomb person gets a line attached to them. This will allow them to take less damage and able to join in DPS on the walker faster.

 

That's a neat trick. Thanks for sharing that.

 

3. For the railshot phase of the pulsar droids, we all stack up on the pulsar droid we are DPSing and it seems to prevent the railshots except during transition (i.e. running between droids or running to the first droid from the walker). We tried the tank 4m thingie you guys did but didn't work for us (maybe we didn't execute properly). When we are burning down the walker a 2nd time in right before the pulsar droids spawn, I always bubble the squishy people (i.e. all the DPS and healers). This way, even if they do eat railshot, they can still survive.

 

Maybe this is just a 16-man cat-herding issue, but we would just have random people eat Rail Shots even when clumped up. It might be they were just far out enough (> 4m) to get hit or something. We ended up just making a tank stay out and eat them, since it doesn't hit very hard anyway, and it gives healers something to do.

 

5. For Gift of the Masters we have a sniper ready at close to 60% and then pop the shield right before everyone gets pulled in. Sniper doesn't get pulled in due to their ability (forgot what it was called). The shield is placed between Kephess and the wall we are running to so as we un to the wall, we run into the shield and reduce some the damage of the ticks.

 

Yeah, we have done this before as well, especially when Gift was bugged. I imagine for Nightmare Mode we'll bring back the bubbles. It's really not a big deal if the raid gets low though, since nobody but the tanks should be taking damage in the final phase.

[Aurojiin]

I realise that with 16-man space is at a premium, but it still seems like it's better to pick one end of the arena for the final phase. E.g., you pick the east end, then the tanks lay their circles in rows building out from the north and south walls, and whoever is currently tanking him just stands with their back against the east wall. Otherwise, unless you're careful and/or lucky, one unfortunate knockback can see your tank landing in an existing circle.

[Kihra]

I realise that with 16-man space is at a premium, but it still seems like it's better to pick one end of the arena for the final phase. E.g., you pick the east end, then the tanks lay their circles in rows building out from the north and south walls, and whoever is currently tanking him just stands with their back against the east wall. Otherwise, unless you're careful and/or lucky, one unfortunate knockback can see your tank landing in an existing circle.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that with three tanks you aren't under any time pressure really. This allows you to drop your circles further away and take your time coming back. It also means you have time to perfectly position yourself for your Kephess taunt. In other words, you basically already have yourself in a place where it will be safe to get knocked back because you have all that extra time to get into a good position before picking Kephess up.

[Aurojiin]

One thing to keep in mind is that with three tanks you aren't under any time pressure really. This allows you to drop your circles further away and take your time coming back. It also means you have time to perfectly position yourself for your Kephess taunt. In other words, you basically already have yourself in a place where it will be safe to get knocked back because you have all that extra time to get into a good position before picking Kephess up.

Fair enough. I guess I just like things to feel as ordered and systematic as possible. I basically stole my approach from

. Still strikes me as the cleanest way of doing it. Edited June 1, 2012 by Aurojiin

[Trineda]

Hello there,

 

Great job! We love posts that help improve the community and other players may find this very useful. Great work!

[DeketheDeke]

I like Duffy's idea to tank the add phase behind the walker however I think less experienced guilds will have trouble downing the bomber should he pop at one of the two spawn points on the far wall. We found it easiest to tank the adds next to the bunker until the walker aoe drops right next us then transition to mid once aoe pauses (about 2/3rds through final wave). This allows us to pull/kill bomber at mid before walker aoe makes its way back to us. Another useful tactic is to have maras/sents leap to the warrior on the 2nd/final waves and solo them away from the group. Heal aggro will draw the rest to the bunker but the maras/sents will need to be topped between waves.

[pure_laced]

WoW. It really is interesting to see the different things posted that other guilds that have downed this every week for several weeks didn't know about it, including us regarding the behind walker positioning for adds. I will fraps our next week's kill and post it.

 

We have always gripped the "bomber" from the walker, so it is nice to see others doing that as well.

 

Aren't you guys a little fearful of potentially not getting down the first set of adds before next group spawns with that positioning? We do it a little differently. 1st add spawns, tank1 AOE taunts. Tank2 single taunts warrior and moves him to where 2nd group spawns and kills him. He is dead with 2 secs to spare before next set spawns and raid is finishing with their adds. Tank2 AOE taunts, Tank1/3 single taunts and pulls warrior to where 3rd group spawns. Rinse for last group. Just a different way of doing things.

 

I just started leveling my sniper, and was unaware of the ability that keeps them in cover and prevents the pull until I got it myself. We had a sniper sacrifice himself, or skipped the shield with the Maruader, but it can be tricky if someone lags at that moment.

[DeketheDeke]

Aren't you guys a little fearful of potentially not getting down the first set of adds before next group spawns with that positioning? We do it a little differently. 1st add spawns, tank1 AOE taunts. Tank2 single taunts warrior and moves him to where 2nd group spawns and kills him. He is dead with 2 secs to spare before next set spawns and raid is finishing with their adds. Tank2 AOE taunts, Tank1/3 single taunts and pulls warrior to where 3rd group spawns. Rinse for last group. Just a different way of doing things.

 

Nope. We've never had a problem with this. Focus fire the first warrior where he stands then myself (heal sorc), our dips merc and dps sorc all drop AOE. Usually 4-5 seconds of downtime before 2nd wave spawns. I imagine it's even easier with a sniper AoE. We run 2 maras so they leap to the warriors and kill them where they spawn.

[eventidephoenix]

I see a lot of people have Sage/Sorc healers around

 

I'd just like to ask, during the last phase when he is hitting the tanks hard, what rotation do u guys use to keep the tank up?

 

I've heard different versions, some say spam deliverance, some say spam benevolence... I find trouble keeping them alive... Several times just 0.1 seconds before my deliverance casts they drop... really wondering if i should now stack alacrity in my gear...

[antonmb]

I see a lot of people have Sage/Sorc healers around

 

I'd just like to ask, during the last phase when he is hitting the tanks hard, what rotation do u guys use to keep the tank up?

 

I've heard different versions, some say spam deliverance, some say spam benevolence... I find trouble keeping them alive... Several times just 0.1 seconds before my deliverance casts they drop... really wondering if i should now stack alacrity in my gear...

 

Wouldn't really call it a rotation, but I use the standard priority. Make sure Rejuvenate is on the tanks, Force Armor/Bubble for mitigation, and prioritze Healing Trance/Innvervate over Deliverance/Dark Infusion and Noble Sacrifice/Consumption as necessary into that cycle. Our other sage prefers Deliverance over Healing Trance on the priority queue, which has its advantages for force efficiency and not being paralyzed for high movement fights (cancelling Healing Trance/Innvervate during a cast because of movement puts it on cooldown).

 

But don't forget, healing is not about strictly following priorities or rotations but using the appropriate tools for an encounter that aligns with your strategy. Sometimes for example, even if Salvation is an AOE heal and advised to be only used with more than X amount of targets, I drop this under a tank paired with a Rejuvenate then actively healing with Healing Trance and Deliverance for example. The HoTs ticking from the two provide great passive healing that helps in certain situations. Also, communication is critical. If you feel like your healers are about to fall behind, call out for a cooldown from your tanks or for them to pop a MedPac.

 

Lastly, what works well for us here during the high damage phases is pre-casting Deliverance before the tanks take a big hit. Say during the last phase or red circle phase (which is a harder phase to heal to be honest because of the DoT) when you know Tank X is about to taunt or eat a big attack, you generally want to have a Deliverance/Dark Infusion pre-casted for that big heal and make sure he has a bubble. Using Force Potency and pairing it with two consecutive Deliverances are also life savers.

 

I never found the need to have Benevolence on my action bar to be honest. Healing Trance/Innervate with Conveyane/Force Bending already works extremely well as a quick heal. Hope this helps.

Edited June 1, 2012 by antonmb

[Lunchmunny]

I'm just a scoundrel healer, but the tanks' survivability depends more on their gear when they're tanking Kephiss imo than anything else. Even playing around in storymode last night we had an alt tank go down from too much burst from Kephiss. We normally run 3 sages and one fatty mcbad scoundrel (me) and our tanks still take a beating. (They are sitting around 27k hp buffed with the appropriate avoidance and Kephiss still can wreck them in HM. One of our sages will have to answer about their specific spell choices for that. My only job is to spam the meatheads.

[Aurojiin]

I'd just like to ask, during the last phase when he is hitting the tanks hard, what rotation do u guys use to keep the tank up?

--- First part of this post deleted because I'm an idiot and my math fails me. ---

 

Benevolence provides worse HPCT and is terribly inefficient; it's not worth using.

 

I currently have 204 alacrity, and Deliverance casts in 2.3 seconds (rounded down). When I had around 300 alacrity, it cast in 2.2 seconds, so... At any rate, there should be a second healer (and possibly a third/fourth), so the cast time on Deliverance should not be the difference between the tank living or dying.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Aurojiin

[CitizenFry]

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?

[Inzi]

Assuming you've managed your force appropriately so you have the budget for it,

 

This is a big part of the encounter for healing as a sorc/sage imo. I always make sure to go into the the final phases with a full force bar. The LAST thing I want is having to use a GCD for lifetap when I need to be hitting a heal button instead.

 

use Rejuvenate on cooldown (for the Force Shelter buff and Conveyance) and chain spam Deliverance. ... Personally I weave in Healing Trances for efficiency. Still, if you want/need maximum HPS, chain-casting Deliverance is it.

 

I disagree here. A rotation which includes using Innervate/Healing Trance on cooldown in conjuction with force-reduced Deliverance/Dark Infusion gives me, in MY gear, an HPS of 2063 with a time to OOF of 96 seconds. That means I can spam the monkeys out of a tank without any downtime for a minute and a half. Compare that with a rotation you're describing (spamming deliverance) which provides an HPS of 2065 (2 hps difference), but a time to OOF of 70 seconds. You get the SAME throughput effectively, but it's a LOT less efficient. In addition, the benefit to using Innervate/Healing Trance is that it is particularly helpful when a tank spikes low because it starts healing immediately.

 

 

Benevolence provides worse HPS and is terribly inefficient; it's not worth using.

 

For anybody who is advocating Benevolence use... even if you assume 100% crit (i.e. you use your Force Bending/Conveyance for this), you heal for something resembling 3.2-3.4k in 1.5s (even if your cast time is below that, you're on GCD and can't heal with anything else then). That equates to ~2.2k HPS. Compare that with Healing Trance/Innervate which heals without the Force Bending/Conveyance buff for roughly 5.8k over ~2.5 seconds hasted. That's 2.3k HPS. So you are spending MORE force for LESS healing. Some people panic and want to hit Benevolence because "it's faster," but I advocate that Healing Trance is ACTUALLY faster healing because you get the 3k healing in the first 2 ticks at the 0s & 1s mark.

 

So now that 3 sorcs/sages have said this in this thread, we can take away the moral of: Benevolence/Dark Heal spamming is not the best plan.

 

 

At any rate, there should be a second healer (and possibly a third/fourth), so the cast time on Deliverance should not be the difference between the tank living or dying.

 

I HAVE seen the tank die to this before. However in 16-man it is usually not a problem because in GENERAL we're not all casting the same thing at the same time. The problem arises when we have 3 sage healers all casting Deliverance right after a tank swap and the tank is getting barely any heals for about 3 seconds. That being said, for US, it's very rare because our 3 sages all cast slightly differently so we tend to have the bases covered.

 

One final note here is that it is IMPERATIVE that you precast in the final phases of Kephess. Even if the tank is at 100% health, I already have the next heal going. Worst case, the tank takes absolutely no dmg and you can cancel the cast by stutterstepping at the last second. Best case, your Deliverance finishes right as the tank takes a big hit and you've already accounted for most of it.

[Aurojiin]

I disagree here.

Just to clarify, my rotational approach for this phase is Rejuvenate>Healing Trance>Deliverance filler. As you've illustrated, it makes by far the most sense.

 

I'm not sure what I was thinking in my original post, tbh. On a HPCT basis, Rejuvenate>Healing Trance on cooldown with Deliverance does actually eclipse hard-casting Deliverance (except when Force Potency comes up, of course). Math fail.

[eventidephoenix]

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?

[Aurojiin]

Did i get that about right?

Pretty much. Remember to always follow Rejuv with HT, since (at the moment) HT doesn't consume the Conveyance proc, meaning you can get double benefit from it versus leading with Deliverance.

[Inzi]

Pretty much. Remember to always follow Rejuv with HT, since (at the moment) HT doesn't consume the Conveyance proc, meaning you can get double benefit from it versus leading with Deliverance.

 

I noticed that phenomenon soon after 1.2, but when I tried to recreate it in the fleet a few days ago it behaved as it SHOULD (i.e. no double bonus). I am not sure if it was a fix or if it's only in-combat or what.

[Aurojiin]

I noticed that phenomenon soon after 1.2, but when I tried to recreate it in the fleet a few days ago it behaved as it SHOULD (i.e. no double bonus). I am not sure if it was a fix or if it's only in-combat or what.

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.