Encounter: Warlord Kephess

Recommended Group Composition

  • 2x Tanks
  • 2x Healers
  • 4x DPS

Notable Mechanics

  • There are four phases, with a burn phase in between each phase.
  • Boss is in a giant robot, immune and does damage to anyone underneath him until he is blown up with a bomb that is dropped from an add spawn.
  • The bombs initiate a burn phase, which is top priority.
  • While alive, the robot will consistently fire purple lasers at regions of the room – This hurts, don’t stand in it.
  • When the boss jumps out of his robot in the last phase, he will drop AoE on the ground – avoid it.
  • Gift of the Masters – Warlord Kephess will do a large purple circle AoE – run out of it.
  • Breath of the Masters – After this goes off, OT should taunt. MT will begin dropping purple circles underneath him. This lasts until 4x purple circles have dropped.

Normal Strategy

  • This fight has 4x phases and a burn phase.
  • While the robot is alive, he will be targeting regions of the room and shooting purple lasers at that region. Don’t stand in this, as it hurts. Having a ranged DPS keep an eye on it and calling it out is optimal.
  • Phase 1 – Kill the 3 champion mobs.
  • Burn Phase – Burn the bombardier as quickly as possible (bomb icon over his head)
    • He has a debuff timer until he explodes – You must kill him before this ends. Stun him within the last couple seconds to extend the explosion a bit if necessary.
    • Once he is dead, a random person will gain a debuff that is displayed by that same bomb icon over their head. Top that person off, pop a shield on them and they should immediately run under the boss.
    • They will automatically ascend up the robot and plant the bomb. Keep in mind, they are taking damage when under the boss – healers do not let them die.
    • The bomb explodes, the robot drops to its knees and is vulnerable for about 10 seconds. Burn the hell out of it, healers included – all cooldowns. This is a phase you will repeat 3 times and burning the robot is your top priority, much like the Soa burn phase.
  • Phase 2 – Adds will spawn with a shield around them.
    • Single target burn the “Warrior” add – This is the one providing the shield.
    • Once dead, AoE the remaining adds.
    • This will happen a few times, just rinse, repeat. Once completed, another burn phase.
  • Burn Phase – Repeat burn phase.
  • Phase 3 – Two champion Pulse Droids will spawn at separate sides of the room.
    • One at a time, they will have a very large purple circle around them. Don’t stand in this, and continue attacking the one that does NOT have the circle.
    • Alternate DPS’ing the one that doesn’t have the circle and both will eventually die.
    • While alive, each robot is attacking the operation and everyone will need to be topped off, as they hurt – Stacking will potentially help out the healers.
    • The one without the purple circle will also each Rail Shot a random player outside of a 10-15m* range. This means that the entire group should stack on top of the droid while DPS’ing.
      • When the red warning appears that the droids are changing polarity, the group should switch. Tanks should leap and no one should use speed boost (this can create unexpected Rail Shots).
    • Once they’re both dead, Warlord Kephess will jump out of his robot and another Bombardier will spawn. Tank should pick the boss, but all DPS should be on the Bombardier for another burn phase.
  • Burn Phase – Ignore the boss while the robot is alive and vulnerable – keep DPS’ing the robot.
  • Phase 4 – After the last burn phase, the robot should be dead.
    • The boss will randomly jump up into the air and throw down a red circle – avoid it.
    • At about 60%, he will pull everyone in and cast “Gift of the Masters”, a very large AoE, displayed by a giant purple circle (much like the pulse droids) – Blow defensive/speed cooldowns and run out of it immediately.
    • Kephess will do a knockback on the tank, then cast “Breath of the Masters”. The other tank should taunt immediately when he begins casting this.
    • The main tank will shortly begin spawning small purple circles on him. He should run around the perimeter of the room, as to avoid having them dropped on the operation, until all 4 purple circles have spawned. Tanks should always stay in range of the boss to taunt on-demand.

Hard Mode Strategy

  • Burn Phase – Stunning the bombers does not prolong them from exploding.
  • Phase 2 – Single target and burn the Warrior add. If you AoE while the shield is up, it will reflect damage.
  • Phase 4 – When Kephess casts “Breath of the Masters” on a tank, they will drop 5 purple circles instead of 4.
  • Phase 4 – Tanks really need to be on their toes about being in position and taunting immediately when “Breath of the Masters” is being casted. It’s only about a 1.5s cast, so they’ll need to be quick. Failure to do so will result in a 1-shot.

Nightmare Mode Strategy

  • Coming Soon.

5-second Recap

  • Phase 1 – Kill adds.
  • Burn phase – Kill Bombardier > person with bomb icon runs under giant robot > burn boss.
  • Phase 2 – Kill warrior first, AoE remaining adds. Repeat a few times.
  • Burn phase
  • Phase 3 – Attack the pulse droid with no purple circle around him. Don’t stand in the purple, stack on the droid you’re attacking. Tank dip out a bit before the transition to eat the rail shot, then re-stack on group.
  • Burn phase
  • Kill Warlord Kephess – don’t stand in red or purple circles. Tank swap on “Breath of the Masters” – affected tank run around perimeter of the room to drop circles.

Items noted with * have still yet to be 100% confirmed as accurate.

Accomp

Accomp is a Software Engineer by day, MMO enthusiast by night, full-time dad, and part-time content creator. He's been writing guides for MMOs for years and has a strong passion for user experience and helping other gamers improve. You can follow him on Twitter to keep up or join his Discord to hang out with his community.

16 Responses

  1. Caedmon says:

    In phase 4 Kephess casts a spell on the tank every so often. I dont know what it does but he drops agro on the tank right after.

    We had a second tank taunt him right after the cast, this made the fight a bit more controlled. Before we did that he would leap at and kill the DPS. Since you need two tanks for other fights in the instance there should be one available. A taunt at the right time might also work but we didnt test it.

    In phase 3 I think the droids rail-shot the player which is furthest away. We only had one try with the tank stood furthest away (in front of the walker) but it seemed to work.

  2. Caedmon says:

    After watching your video a bit more closely it looks like what happens in phase 4 is this:

    -He casts breath of the masters on his current tank.

    -The tank gets a debuff which drops the purple circles on the ground 4 times

    -He drops agro on the tank when the first purple circle is dropped on the floor.

    So it would make it easier on melee if you had two tanks, and the one with the debuff ran away from kephess. Then kephess could be tanked in the same place until he puts the next debuff on. A bit less running around for everyone 🙂

    Whether you’d have enough DPS with two tanks is another thing. My guild did but we’re in mostly Rakata so..

    Thanks for the guides as well 🙂 saved on a lot of learning time.

  3. legibryn says:

    Awesome guide! We are going to start running this Op this week and we needed a good guide to help us along. Thanks!

  4. MacAllen says:

    We had a really rough time on the bomber mob. We 1-2 shot every boss to this point, then couldn’t get the bomb buff, so we got to the end of the fight, tanking the big boss while the big bot was also at 100%.

    It’s a matter of timing on the stun, I believe. Have to hit it just right, just at the end.

  5. Accomp says:

    @ Caedmon – Great feedback and I’ve confirmed most of it and added it to the guide. Still unsure about the Pulse Droids targeting the furthest player – will try to confirm/deny that this week. I’ve found that EC Story Mode in its current state, you really should have the entire raid in at least half Rakata and that would probably cut the enrage timers fairly close. Thanks for the comments!

    @ legibryn – Very cool, thanks! Let me know if you need any help or run into any issues. I’m always available here or over on Twitter – @TrooperCommando – Good luck!

  6. Accomp says:

    @ MacAllen – It’s really a matter of positioning and getting DPS on the Bomber as quickly as possible. Our group is rarely forced to utilize the stun to delay the explosion, only when we weren’t in the correct position to being DPS’ing him directly as he spawns. But yeah – if your group DPS is low, timing a Cryo Grenade or something when it’s about to go off will give a few extra seconds to get him down. Also, if you group comp allows for it, try having your tank pull the Bomber to the group. This helps the melee out a good bit.

  7. Ydoajin says:

    By the way, not mentioned in the above, don’t kill the walker in two burn phases. We had an attempt where we burned the walker down under 49% in the first burn, and the second we killed it. The bad thing that occurred here was you still have to deal with the pulse droids AND the warlord.

    It looks like it is intended to have three burns regardless, so don’t attempt two.

    good hunting

    Yd.

  8. Abbster says:

    They will also each Rail Shot the furthest player away from them. Position a tank on each side of the group to eat this, as it can easily drop a non-tank.

    -This did not work for us at all, after three hours of wipping due to this mechanic is wrong. We found out by all standing in malee he does not rail shot anyone.

    -The actual ability works by if anyone is outside of a 5-10 yard radius he can pottentialy attack them with rail shot. Alot of time the tank would get hit then our sage would get hit by 2 rail shots back to back for a total of 25k damage in 3 seconds with the sage being in bewteen the tank and the add.

  9. Accomp says:

    @ Abbster – This is interesting. We will try to confirm this on Monday. Thanks for the heads up!

    • Abbster says:

      Just wanted to be clear to others. If you had your whole group on top of the add and just a tank 5-10 yards apart it would only hit the tank. But you can put the tank on top of the add as well and he takes no damage. The only part someone should get hit from rail shot is the transition from one add to the next but only should be shot once for 15k max.

      Video to confirm what Im talkin about is here start at 3:42

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mz5x-OkfUTo

  10. Accomp says:

    @ Abbster – Very cool. So to eliminate the threat of someone taking a rail shot, you could potentially just have a tank start running a little early on the transition, or at least stepping out early. Since you can see when the swaps are going to occur, that should be a good way to avoid it – Very good catch!

  11. Abbster says:

    Correct Sir!
    As you can see in the video on the first transition of that phase when they head to the second add, Dominous the healer runs out early to the second add and gets hit noticably with half his health depeleted in a mer second.

  12. NickyDan says:

    Ohhhh how I wish my guild had known how to avoid rail shots when we first did Kephess, those things are a nightmare to heal through! I kept thinking there had to be some way to control the damage, and am super stoked to let the guild know about it for our next attempt~~

    Has the method of prolonging the time to kill bombers by stunning them been confirmed since 1.2 hit live? I’ve heard some sources say it was removed. There’s so much conflicting information regarding the new content, it’s hard to know what’s what @.@

  13. raptiq says:

    For the final phase, try taunting during the cast, Kephess does a cleave move after the cast finishes so unless he’s taunted very quickly he will oneshot the tank he’s on. The cast will finish on the original tank and then he’ll jump over to the OT. Worked like a charm for my guild.

    If you have the 2 tanks running off to the corners/sides to get off their purple circles then the final phase is actually quite manageable (Sin/Jugg with 2 OP heals). Only tricky part is the bombardiers really 🙂

  14. Accomp says:

    @ raptiq – Very cool. We will give that a shot tonight and see how it goes. Thanks man.

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