BC1 - High Kinlord Rilis - Heavy Attack

TheGremlyn · February 2020

I've tanked this boss for a while now and I've always noticed that the telegraph for his heavy attack is pretty lengthy but somewhere in the telegraph you, as the tank, are unable to block it. Your character just stands there and takes the hit and is knocked back. The telegraph can be difficult to see amidst player and boss effects (blue fire or player ults).

I always thought this was odd since other bosses and monsters you can get your block up just before the blow lands and deflect the damage. For whatever reason, with High Kinlord Rilis, if you don't block when he starts to wind up for that heavy attack you just can't block it at all. This feels like a bug to me given this pretty much doesn't happen anywhere else in the game.

I play on PC-NA and this has been a weird quirk I've just ignored for over a year, year and half (?), probably...

virtus753 · February 2020

That sounds exactly like the issue with the Warchief in Fungal Grotto I, and I believe the animation is similar, if not the same. If you don’t block while he’s still in the middle of his windup, he will knock you back — even if you are blocking at the moment of visual impact.

With the changes to player block to reflect more accurately whether we’re blocking or not, hopefully they can update the timing of these NPC animations to be more accurate as well.

dazee · February 2020

I've noticed a whole lot of enemies are actually failing to play their heavy attack animations at all. I get knocked back by their sheer psychic powers apparently.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · February 2020

I just assumed that the knockback is unblockable. As far as I can remember, I have never managed to avoid it. Apparently, I wasn't trying hard enough.

TheGremlyn · February 2020

I can manage to block it if I focus exclusively on the Rilis. I spend more of the fight blocking unnecessarily during the fight in the hopes of already having my block up before he starts the telegraph the wind up for his heavy attack. Or I catch the telegraph as soon as it begins.

However, if I spend that amount of time only looking at Rilis then I'm not paying attention to where other group members are or where we're even standing. I like to keep my eyes on the group to help heal or buff them, or I need to maneuver Rilis to another spot to keep the group from standing in stupid.

The thing that has started to bother me is there's a moment while he's still telegraphing his heavy attack that you just can't block. You could be holding block but your character is just standing there not doing anything and then you get this a half second to a second later and you're knocked back. It's almost like you're stunned but only if you wanted to block. If you just kept using light attacks or abilities you'd be fine... and you'd still get knocked back...