A guide to defeating the Dread Guards Heirad Ciphas and Kel’sara in SWTOR Nightmare Terror from Beyond (TFB)
General information & Video
- HP: Heirad –1.31 million, Ciphas – 1.72 million, Kel’sara – 1.39 million
- Enrage: 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
- Loot: 1x Kell Dragon Relic, 1 random Shadowed item (L75 stuff without set bonus), 8 Elite Commendations, 6 Ultimate Commendations, 1 Mass Manipulation Generator, 2 Exotic Element Equalizer on 8m.
Video (Live, pre-nerf)
Main Differences from Hardmode
This fight is tightly tuned for nightmare and is a step up in difficulty from The Withering Horror. Phase 3 especially put a lot of stress on healers.
Phase 1 – Heirad
- Try aim for 2 Lighting Fields only to help with enrage.
- Lighting Field now slows you and Heirad’s Surging Chain reflects damage.
- Lighting Field hits hard, but certain classes have abilities to negate damage (i.e. snipers/assasins/sorcerers & republic equivalents)
Heirad’s attack cycle abit faster and as a result you have a shorter time between Lighting Fields. This means you will need a much higher DPS to ensure that you only get two Lighting Field in this phase. . Having three Lighting Fields may cause you trouble with the enrage.
Heirad’s Lighting Field attack will also slow player, making getting to your position much more difficult.
Our typical Lighting Field configuration is this on 8m. This allow healers to top off anyone that is low on HP before the Lighting Field hits. Ranged DPS and healers stack in the middle after Lighting Field hits for AoE heals (be sure to not stack directly on the boss since he has a knockback when he casts Surging Chain that can interrupt your heals/DPS). The explosion at end of Lighting Field hits for ~16k on unprotected players.
- Snipers/Gunlingers can time their roll ability with about a second left on the Lighting Field. If done correctly, they won’t take any damage from the Lighting Field
- Assassins/Shadows can use Force Shroud to block the damage from Lighting Field.
- Sorcerer/sage Force Barrier also works in blocking all the damage from this attack.
Also, it should be common knowledge but control your collateral damage to Ciphas and Kel’sara this phase as otherwise they will buff Heirad and increase his damage.
Lastly, the Surging Chain attack by Heirad will reflect any damage done to him so make sure you jump on Ciphas right away to break the shield.
Phase 2 – Ciphas
- Doom is now 6 stacks, if you accidently eat more than 1-2 circles, you are likely to wipe the raid
- Ciphas usually choke players that are far away from him so if you are low on HP stay near Ciphas (his smash+ strangle combo will kill anyone under 50%)
The big change to this phase is that Ciphas’s Doom is now six stacks. This means that you want to try avoid accidently eating a green circle when you don’t have Doom on you as that can get the “doomed” person killed. The player with Doom will probably need to consume all the green circles and then wait for new circles to pop up to remove all six stacks.
- Sorcerers/Sages with their Force Barrier ability can avoid the damage from Doom, allowing them to not bother with Doom and giving the raid a few extra green circles.
- Snipers/Gunslingers can also time their roll ability with end of the Doom to not take any damage once the Doom stacks expires.
- Ciphas tend to strangle players that are furthest from him so if you are low on HP (<60%) try stay near Ciphas so you don’t get strangled and killed.
When Ciphas dies, all Doom stacks are removed so you do not need to worry about dying to Doom afterwards.
Phase 3- Kel’sara
Phase 3 is the most challenging part of this fight and is very healing intensive due to several new mechanics,
- Force Leach hurts if tanks receives an accidental heal. Make sure tanks are shielded if you have sorc/sage healers to prevent any collateral damage.
- Players will now drop red circles (Expiatory Motes) on the ground in a similar manner to phase 2. These circles cannot be removed and put a long lasting DoT on anyone that touched them that ticks for ~7k damage every 3 seconds (lasts for 15 seconds or more). While most players are able to move away from these circles, you will have to watch for knockback from Kel’sara and her adds. You want to place these red circles on the outer edges of the room to prevent players from accidently stepping or getting knocked into them.
- You can remove the DoT you get from stepping into the red circles by running into a green circle from phase 2.
- Like in phase 2, watch for swirling orbs around your character. If you see swirling orbs, start running so you don’t have a red circle spawn under your feet.
3. The three Dread Guard Legionnaires that Kel’sara summons all have ~50K HP each and hit a bit harder. They should be tanked if possible to avoid having them running rampant and killing the DPS/healers.
Reminder of Hardmode mechanics
If you are not familiar with the hardmode mechanics, here is a quick brush up for you. For a more detailed guide, please consult this guide.
Phase 1
- When Heirad casts Surging Chain, he is immune to damage and you must attack Ciphas to remove his Empowered Barrier on Heirad
- Heirad’s Lighting Field attack hurt less if everyone is spread out.
Phase 2
- Ciphas dooms random players. Doom stacks can be removed by running into green circles dropped by other players.
- Ciphas will also leap and strangle random players. Tanks/melee DPS will need to interrupt Ciphas ASAP.
Phase 3
- Kel’sara casts Force Leach on main tank, tank swap and stop healing the tank with the debuff as any heal will translate to damage.
- Kel’sara will also put a Death Mark on a random raid member and chase them. She will likely one shot anyone if they don’t run away.
- Lastly, Kel’sara casts a DoT called Withering Terror on a random raid member that hurt quite a bit, make sure they get healed.
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