Nightmare Mode Kephess Speculation

[Kihra]

So the primary way that WoW stretches out a tier of raid content, making it last long enough to keep hardcore raiders entertained, is that they make the final boss of an Operation a huge step up compared to all the previous bosses. Raid groups spend weeks and weeks trying to down that last boss to complete the tier.

 

I don't know if Bioware has a similar goal in mind for Kephess, but I thought I would provide some suggestions as to how to make the fight brutal enough to really test the skill of a raid and keep us all entertained until the next Operation comes out.

 

First off, I would set the overall Hard Enrage timer to not be too difficult to meet as long as every single raid member is alive. The goal of a well-designed Nightmare Mode fight should be that if you lose enough DPS, you won't be able to complete the fight. Most wipes while learning should not be to Hard Enrage. They should be wipes called by the raid leader as a result of losing too many DPS in earlier phases.

 

My goal here isn't to create a Heroic Ragnaros level fight or anything. I think 150 attempts or so should be expected for a guild that knows what they are doing. (I'm hoping for between 50-75 attempts for the other three bosses.)

 

The Imperial Siege Droids

 

I would slow down the Calibrating Shot cast time to 2 seconds and have it do a huge AOE splash to anyone within 100m if it gets off. Basically make it so that failing to interrupt one results in brutal raidwide damage that will likely kill anyone who isn't topped off. If two get off close together, many raid members should die.

 

The idea is to turn this phase into an interrupt coordination check. On 8-man you should only require one interrupt per droid. One 16-man you should require two per droid.

 

Make this phase more challenging for healers by having each droid do a low-grade raidwide damage pulse.

 

Make the Bomber spawn after a fixed amount of time. Don't wait for all three droids to die. This will create a DPS check in that you have to get the adds down in time or you won't be prepared for the Bomber.

 

Baradium Bombers

 

Make the bomber Rocket Blast hit so hard that it will kill anyone but a tank. Add slightly more wiggle room before the first Rocket Blast goes off to give the tanks time to taunt and grip the bomber into position. Reduce the time allowed before the Bomber blows up slightly compared to Hard Mode so that it is challenging to get the bomber down in time. Make chain stunning be required or risk a tank death.

 

Warriors and Trenchgutters

 

You don't have to change much here. Just make it a tough DPS check. Raids should wipe here from getting overwhelmed if they don't have sufficient DPS to get the adds down in time. Losing people in P1 or to the first bomber should result in being overwhelmed during this phase. Try to tune it so the whole raid needs to be alive during this phase.

 

Pulsar Droids

 

This phase is way too easy in Hard Mode. This is a good place to actually add a mechanic. Make the Channeled Pulse snare people and hit way harder. I would consider actually adding new mobs to DPS during this phase... maybe adds that try to get to the walker to heal it that have to be stopped before they reach the walker.

 

There are lots of things you could change here, but I would definitely add something to make this phase more of a coordination and DPS check than it is currently. Give the 2nd tank and healers something to do!

 

Kephess from 100-60%

 

Make Kephess hit really hard. Make the Savage Wounding DoT tick for even more. Beef up Arcing Slash considerably so that positioning mistakes will actually risk killing melee.

 

I don't think you need to add any new mechanic during this phase, since getting the Bomber down is challenging enough already in conjunction with healing through the Kephess damage.

 

Gift of the Masters

 

Make Gift of the Masters snare so that you take some unavoidable damage running out. Make it hit slightly harder. This should be an intense healing and cooldown check for the raid.

 

Kephess 60%-0.

 

I don't think you need to add any mechanics here other than to make the phase take a long time so that the room fills up with purple circles. First kills will ideally involve a room full of purple circles and half the raid dead.

 

Anyone else have any interesting ideas for how to make Kephess a truly brutal encounter on Nightmare Mode?

Edited June 11, 2012 by Kihra

[ninja_skillet]

I think that would be the best thing to Do with kephess maybe a explosive debuff on a random player that does high damage only to nearby allies and if it hits the circles causes them to double in size or something? but i LOVE your idea for the fight, hopefully bioware will read it and make use of it. i would say maybe even have some form of move away from a player beam ability like that guy in wow (forgot lol) Maybe change the walker so it shoots fire even faster? making awareness more important through phase 1-3 maybe Roflbuff kephess' hp too? he is llike around 700-800k hard, maybe put him 1.1million? Edited June 11, 2012 by ninja_skillet

[alifaraaz]

Some real nice ideas ^^ mind you Im still working on HM Kephess, silly mistakes and lack of dps keeping us away from getting a kill. Particularly like the idea for some repair droids/engineers spawning to heal the walker during the rail shot droids phase.

 

Though, I guess we'll have to wait and see - I would think, or rather hope that they've already decided on additional mechanics and changes for EC NiM and are more or less just putting it all together, so they might be too far in to make changes without delaying the whole things even more. (Its kinda late as it is imo, shoulda been in 1.3)

[Kaisies]

Baradium Bombers

 

Make the bomber Rocket Blast hit so hard that it will kill anyone but a tank.

 

Make chain stunning be required or risk a tank death.

 

 

i wont quote the rest, but make up your mind o.0

[Kihra]

i wont quote the rest, but make up your mind o.0

 

No inconsistency there, although I could have worded it better. I meant make the Rocket Blast hit for 20k+ on a tank. Then failure to stun the Bomber will mean that two Rocket Blasts in a row could *potentially* kill a tank if he doesn't get enough healing in between the Rocket Blasts.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Kihra

[_Zorth_]

Something they could do to really mess with every hardcore raiding group that sets foot in there is to make the walker boss actually walk around the room, Forcing groups to move around at all times. The only problem I can see with this is that the room is too small for 16man, But oh well.. It wouldn't be a challenge otherwise

 

If making the walker move around is too much of a hassle they should just make the acid spawn more often and give everyone that steps foot on it a DoT that will tick for 3k each second to the person and everyone in 10 yards range of him/her unless someone cleanses it??

 

Maybe introduce some form of mindtrap mechanic in the very last phase, Giving DPS 2 things to focus on.. Not just burning the boss?

[ninja_skillet]

Something they could do to really mess with every hardcore raiding group that sets foot in there is to make the walker boss actually walk around the room, Forcing groups to move around at all times. The only problem I can see with this is that the room is too small for 16man, But oh well.. It wouldn't be a challenge otherwise

 

If making the walker move around is too much of a hassle they should just make the acid spawn more often and give everyone that steps foot on it a DoT that will tick for 3k each second to the person and everyone in 10 yards range of him/her unless someone cleanses it??

 

Maybe introduce some form of mindtrap mechanic in the very last phase, Giving DPS 2 things to focus on.. Not just burning the boss?

 

Like the idea of last time, maybe some form of shadow of kephess that tanks will have to swap too? (imagine that, Kephess turning into two...)The shadow's abilities are classified as like shadow breath of the master and gives a different debuff then touch of the masters, So tanks will actually have to swap while also one of them are managing the shadow things on the group. (Even Shadow Kephes could do less damage and cannot die? so hes around forever until kephess dies! )

Edited June 12, 2012 by ninja_skillet

[_Zorth_]

Like the idea of last time, maybe some form of shadow of kephess that tanks will have to swap too? (imagine that, Kephess turning into two...)The shadow's abilities are classified as like shadow breath of the master and gives a different debuff then touch of the masters, So tanks will actually have to swap while also one of them are managing the shadow things on the group. (Even Shadow Kephes could do less damage and cannot die? so hes around forever until kephess dies! )

 

IMO tanks have enough things to do in that last phase, They should give healers an additional cleansing task and DPS mindtraps to DPS while burning the boss.. So everyone would have to multitask

[ninja_skillet]

IMO tanks have enough things to do in that last phase, They should give healers an additional cleansing task and DPS mindtraps to DPS while burning the boss.. So everyone would have to multitask

 

true true, i really just wanted to have lots of wipes due to me dying to a second kephess :3

[Talorra]

As a DPS, I would love to see more to focus on during the last phases. It's basically don't get cleaved on tank swaps (I'm melee) and chase Kephess around for a bit. Make one of us a "bomb" (like puzzle droid in KP or first boss in EV) or an ability for Kephess that chains a melee and ranged so that they need to stay a certain distance from each other as the fight moves around the room.

[_Zorth_]

As a DPS, I would love to see more to focus on during the last phases. It's basically don't get cleaved on tank swaps (I'm melee) and chase Kephess around for a bit. Make one of us a "bomb" (like puzzle droid in KP or first boss in EV) or an ability for Kephess that chains a melee and ranged so that they need to stay a certain distance from each other as the fight moves around the room.

 

They should make Kephess put DoT's on random people in teh last phase and tick for like 3k every second and explode at the end almost killing the person. The DoT would spread to other raid members if too close so the affected person needs to get cleansed ASAP?

This would give healers a new task..

 

For DPS they should add mindtraps in the last phase, They would now have 2 targets to burn and to make it even more challenging they should add a bomb mechanic. Random persons will get targeted and explode after say 5 seconds, But the catch is that they also get a DoT on them, ticking for a small amount but affects the entire raid if too close?

 

Tanks already have enough in the last phase, To make it a little harder for them BW should make the purple circles never go away, forcing them to tactically place them in good spots. So at the end of each NiM Kephess vid we'll see a room filled with purple and half the raid dead?

 

It would also be epic if they made it a last man standing fight, at 1% Kephess kills everyone except 1 random person who gets to finish him off?

[ninja_skillet]

It would also be epic if they made it a last man standing fight, at 1% Kephess kills everyone except 1 random person who gets to finish him off?

 

Epic, Truly Epic.

[Elear]

or an ability for Kephess that chains a melee and ranged so that they need to stay a certain distance from each other as the fight moves around the room.

With forced movement for tank and melee and preference for ranged to stay immobile, that would probably be first mechanic unfriendly to ranged. Only issue, healers would also be hit by it, so to handle it while keeping incoming damage same, give 3 devices for healers(or one lucky rdps) that would provide immunity from this.