Addressing Enfys Nest unique protection stacking
May 31, 2018 2:57PM
edited May 2018
I was wowed they released a non-legendary, non-raid toon this good and with no warning. I marveled over the theory last night after unlocking. I stood in horror this morning that she has already taken #1 in my shard on a Rex/wampa/DN/thrawn team replacing CLS at 3 stars and g11 with god speed mods. This morning, Reddit has shown me something initially terrifying but with some potential ways to handle it.
Check this out and pay close attention to what is happening.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/8nigzy/fracturing_a_deathmarked_nest_not_even_a_scratch/
What are we seeing?
A stunned Enfys is already deathmarked and heal blocked. She already has a massive bonus protection bar. She takes 4 hits from thrawn's fracture over the deathmark and healblock, and NOTHING HAPPENS. Seems like a very sticky situation to have gotten into.
***EDIT***--- the OP of the Reddit post has realized that they pre-stacked a very high amount of protection before this by trying to stunlock and burn her. They retried and used a strategy much like one I've posted later in thread and killed her off just fine with their same team.
The ability (at level 1) reads:
"When Nest is damaged by an attack, she gains... 40% bonus protection (stacking). This Bonus Protection increases by an additional 40% each time."
How does her protection stacking work? My theory: 40% on first hit, 80% second hit, 120% third hit, etc? Is this the intended way it is doing it? (I tagged devs below and someone did in the kit release thread) A factorial stacking gives her essentially invulnerability until her next turn if she survives the initial damage and you keep attacking her. .
If they intended it to be 40, 40+40, 40+40+40, etc...Multihitters will give her 80-160% bonus protection in a single attack.
So....Is our only option to hit her ONCE per one of her turns while she can basically put out devastating debuffs, steal tm, stack crit damage if unaddressed, or just sit there and take no damage if attacked? Is our only option Annihilate?
Check this out and pay close attention to what is happening.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/8nigzy/fracturing_a_deathmarked_nest_not_even_a_scratch/
What are we seeing?
A stunned Enfys is already deathmarked and heal blocked. She already has a massive bonus protection bar. She takes 4 hits from thrawn's fracture over the deathmark and healblock, and NOTHING HAPPENS. Seems like a very sticky situation to have gotten into.
***EDIT***--- the OP of the Reddit post has realized that they pre-stacked a very high amount of protection before this by trying to stunlock and burn her. They retried and used a strategy much like one I've posted later in thread and killed her off just fine with their same team.
The ability (at level 1) reads:
"When Nest is damaged by an attack, she gains... 40% bonus protection (stacking). This Bonus Protection increases by an additional 40% each time."
How does her protection stacking work? My theory: 40% on first hit, 80% second hit, 120% third hit, etc? Is this the intended way it is doing it? (I tagged devs below and someone did in the kit release thread) A factorial stacking gives her essentially invulnerability until her next turn if she survives the initial damage and you keep attacking her. .
If they intended it to be 40, 40+40, 40+40+40, etc...Multihitters will give her 80-160% bonus protection in a single attack.
So....Is our only option to hit her ONCE per one of her turns while she can basically put out devastating debuffs, steal tm, stack crit damage if unaddressed, or just sit there and take no damage if attacked? Is our only option Annihilate?
Post edited by Anavel_Gato on
0
Replies
I really can't see the logic behind the fact her protection gain isn't stopped by healing immunity like every other protection regen we have so far in the game, would it be coming from the different leader (zeta) ability or coming from a character's unique like Boba has.
It's not a "protection up" buff. It's just virtually identical to the good ol' protection regen, except the regained protection is purple and reset under certain condition. I don't see why it shoudn't be prevented by healing immunity for consistency. It's not like it would cripple her: characters with healing immunity are not exactly by the hundreds, let alone the vast majority of them aren't even close to be meta.
Really, it's vastly overpowered, I don't think a tiny counter with healing immunity is too much to ask. It's would not only be consistent with the rest of the game, but it could also promote the use of less frequently played characters.
It's just a question. But, is this toons doesn't worry anyone ?
A toon which almost can't die ? Which impose to Nihilus to be present ?
Someone thought about this toon in territory war ?
Maybe NS could be ok... all toons avoiding protection. But there isn't a lot.
To have an OP toon is ok i guess, to counter another one, but doesn't it go too far ?
Why EA don't you just limit the protection bonus per turn by 2 or 3 ? And it would be such a lovely toon.
It's my thoughts !
What's yours ?
Not sure. Haven't tested that yet. But I think it's when you do a direct attack, not just 'on damage' like other effects.
I would appreciate the devs input at least regarding what exactly her protection stacking is doing and whether or not this is intended.
@CG_SBCrumb
@CG_TopHat
@CG_GAWS
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/8nigzy/fracturing_a_deathmarked_nest_not_even_a_scratch/
Yes, she has a lot of extra protection so he has already been hit a few times so the gain is enormous. Deathmark damage is based off health only, so it doesn't scale up with her prot. And fracture hits a few times, each time giving her more extra protection. This is an example of a bad play rather than OP character.
This.
This mechanic is similar to the Sith raid bosses, there are ways to strategically get around that. You just need to be on top of it.
But I'm sure time will tell.
I'd stun her and leave her to last.
More testing will be needed to see how to mitigate the devastation of letting her take turns vs trying to burn and in what order.
Option 1 - Stun and follow with massive DPS with protection ignoring attacks.
Option 2 - Keep her stunned and kill everyone else.
Possibilities:
Sith Assassin
Sith trooper
Nihilus
Plague + ichor lightning + NS squad
That's off the top of my head and there are others.
Having such limited counter option seems not really healthy balance-wise, as it might limit the meta diversity even more
I've done some more thinking and talking and I'm modeling my strategy against Enfys under "zKylo under zMatt leadership" clone.
For those that have not seen this setup, part of zMatt's leadership is to heal 5% hp/prot for each buff or debuff gained or lost. With zKylo's own ability to stack defense every time he's hit, this could easily lead to situations where you either capped his defense stacks and you hit for <1k per hit and/or outheal your own damage if your abilities apply any effects to him. Deathmark is also useless as he takes miniscule % health damage.
"Option 2" is the IMO the key to beating this zMatt/zKylo combo and also Enfys Nest. I like the idea of plague and such but on the teams she fits best on, they can AOE down an NS team fast so I'm not sure how viable this is against a top level Enfys until this gets widely tested.
What I typically do there is stun lock or fracture Kylo while I address the rest of the group. If I were to keep attacking Kylo I'm just wasting valuable TM and attacks on someone that can just take all of the damage you can put out and even heal up through it. Once isolated, you stop stunning and just let him take turns so the defense stacks reset and he dies quickly.
Now we have Enfys who isn't healing when taking damage or being buffed/debuffed but with an ability that (probably) stacks protection in a brand new way* and has fastest base speed in the game. Left unchecked she can devastate your team with control debuffs and if attempting to burn her she can take incredible amounts of damage and later heal herself.
Multihits are the opposite of what you want. Anything that does get through the very first hit is going to be heavily mitigated or outright blocked. Trying to burn her through a stunlock or fracture looks impossible at full gear.
She's not putting out huge damage even with her crit stacking ability but with her spread of multi-effect abilities that only need minimal upgrades and fantastic AOE daze + TM down/steal, she looks like she can easily step into the Rex / Titan setups. She will be around and fast so be prepared.
TLDR
- Enfys works a lot like zKylo under zMatt
- the more you hit her per one of her turns, the harder she is to kill
- fracture/stunlock and leave alone until she is last alive
- after that, hit with single attacks and let take turns to clear the defense stacks
- need to test some more kill theories like plague, target lock, ignore protection, probe droid
*
Until confirmed or refuted by devs, I think what is happening is that she stacks 40% x number of consecutive hits between end of her turn and end of her next turn. Hit one gives 40%, hit two gives 40+40=80%, hit three gives 40+40+40=120%. She retains protection bar during her move so can use that to soak up counters. This was based on GW testing today.
zKRUM / zKRU / zMatt / zeta Kylo Ren Unmasked
Yes thank you. But why "Matt" or "Radar Technician" that I also see.
Hilarious. Thanks.
it seems logically absurd that a character would have no choice but to attack even when you know very well that attack would be counterproductive. "can't help myself...must...smack...armored lady...in face...noooooooo!"
So first attack is +40% protection (stacking). But then it very specific states "this Bonus Protection increases by an ADDITIONAL 40% each time".
Second attack adds 40% x 40% = 56%
Third adds 40% x 40% x 40% = 78% ?
Either that or it's:
40%
80%
120% after the third, so 240% added with 3 attacks.
If so it's completely ludicrous either way.
Even Ezra's bonus doesn't stack like that. If it did he'd be like a nuclear weapon after 3 or 4 turns.