Deathstorm
Deathstorm is one of the teams used in phase 3 of the Heroic Sith Raid. It is most useful in guilds with a high number of Nightsister teams, as Nightsisters are the only effective team in phase 4 while Darth Nihilus is alive, at least for now. However, if your guild does have enough Nightsisters to clear phase 4, with some left over, Deathstorm becomes a very valuable team, as it has, with the current exception of Finn C-3PO teams in phase 3, which will probably not last, the highest damage ceiling of any team in any phase. While the team becomes extremely rng heavy very quickly, it is a simple matter to dish out a few million damage with only mediocre mods, and does not take a particularly long time. If you're willing to put in the extra effort and have time for a couple of tries, this team is capable of well over 10 million damage consistently, and in my opinion, is well worth the time and resources needed for it. Here is a detailed guide to running the team I wrote a while back, I hope you appreciate it.
Introduction
Deathstorm is a fairly new team to the scene of the sith raid (I started working on this in September 2018). Originally taken from the HAAT (Created there by Rise of the Bon3), the team was used by me in phase 3 with Acolyte instead of Initiate since the launch of the sith raid. When I shared the concept with Nightbrother Nick/MMO Pro Nick upon successes, he was quick to turn his own experience and roster, as well as his zeta Nightsister Initiate to modify my team and the strategy slightly to create what is now a team that I believe is fully capable of soloing phase 3 of the heroic sith raid with good rng and the right mods.
TO MAKE SURE THAT CREDIT IS GIVEN WHERE IT IS DUE: Original idea of zTalzin lead NS in raids: Rise of the Bon3
Discovered Potential of using zTalzin lead NS in Phase 3 Sith Raid: Me (Darth Triumvirate)
Actual Creation of an effective and working team: Nightbrother Nick
Out of every usable team in the raid, this is the one I know best, so I will make this guide first both as a useful tool for a new idea, but also to get myself experience.
The “trick” to Deathstorm is in the name. The exploitation of both Bonds of Weakness and interacting mechanics within the sphere of a zetad Mother Talzin lead to create near invulnerable Old Daka and Asajj Ventress and to cause Asajj to hit for hundreds of thousands a hit, making both massive damage, building at an exponential rate, and a capability to survive farther past enrage than before, making it both possible to solo the phase and also to deal incredible damage without insane dependence on rng like Chex Mix requires. Before enrage, this team is capable of dealing over 5 million damage, making it superior to any other team, and the fairly low rng required to survive at least 4 or 5 turns past enrage, with the rng only climbing to crazy odds between 10 and 15 turns after enrage making this team and strategy the most efficient and highest damage dealing in the raid at this time.
The 5 characters in the team are Mother Talzin, Asajj Ventress, Old Daka, Nightsister Zombie, and Nightsister Initiate.
Required zetas for this team are Mother Talzin lead (The Great Mother), Assaj Ventress unique (Rampage), and Old Daka unique (Serve Again). Mother Talzin’s unique zeta (Plaguebearer), and Nightsister Initiate’s unique zeta (Nightsister Retaliation), will increase the damage of the team slightly, but are not required for a successful run and are useful for different reasons.
THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF THIS TEAM IS THAT YOU DO NOT USE OLD DAKA’S HEAL EXCEPT IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. I will go into this in more detail later.
Modding
For Modding purposes, Asajj Ventress should have a CD set and a Health set, with a CD Triangle, and then stack as much offense as possible on her. She is your damage dealer, and will be what your entire run relies upon. Old Daka is next up, and she needs as much Health as possible, although don’t ignore armor. 3 Health sets is probably the way to go for her, and protection is pretty much irrelevant, with health, armor, and speed being the only things you care about. She should have a Speed arrow, but then give her a Health triangle, circle, and cross. Nightsister Zombie should be a balance between health and speed. You want her to go fast, but since her rework, you want her to have enough health to eat some hits, and slow enough that she isn’t taunting constantly, which will get her killed too much, causing her to be frozen well before enrage. If you can get complete sets without sacrificing secondary speed and health, then a Speed set and a Health set are the recommended. Mother Talzin and Nightsister Initiate should be modded both with an Offense set and a CC set, however Talzin should be prioritized, as long as she is g11 or g12, and Initiate is g9 or lower, which is recommended for ease of the run.
The Run
Starting off the run, target Sabers with retribution, to get them to counter and deal damage to Nightsister Zombie. If you can use Spirit Blade Assault first as well, that helps, and increases the run damage slightly, as Talzin will not be using it again before enrage almost certainly. After the 3 sabers have gone, Traya will use Isolate on Zombie, and then her Saber Storm, and the Saber Storm should kill Zombie. If she dies too soon, and Asajj or Daka take damage, anyone else takes Isolate, or Zombie hasn’t died after this, then restart.
If any sabers have retribution, target them with Initiate’s first Special. This will both get a counter on her, helping to take her down faster, and also gives the entire team CC up, boosting their damage for a bit at the start. As soon as it gets to Talzin’s turn, use Stand Alone (Do not do this if you have a g12 Zombie, or if your team is modded too much for health, this may be just based on experimentation, but it will be counter-productive if your team gives Talzin too much extra Health and Protection). This will hopefully at least drain all of her protection, and in Heroic possibly kill her entirely, which is excellent. Because Stand Alone lasts for 3 turns and Isolate has a 4 turn cooldown, Talzin should not be at risk of being Isolated while this lasts, even if she is slower than Traya. During this time, you only want to use her basic attack on Darth Traya, so that you take as much damage as possible from the Sabers, and aren’t at risk of toppling Traya. Once Stand Alone has expired, or Talzin is dead, have both Initiate and Talzin attack sabers with Retribution to try to get them killed as fast as possible (for this purpose it is recommended to have Undying Sacrifice at level 1). If Isolate is off cooldown, then target the Sabers instead of Traya, so she doesn’t gain speed and allows Zombie time to taunt, while also reducing the damage from the sabers so she survives until Isolate is used, at which point go back to attacking Traya, unless Initiate and Talzin can attack Retribution Sabers and not kill them. Hopefully you can have both Talzin and Initiate dead by the time you hit 11 turns to enrage, at which point the strategy becomes much more simple until enrage.
Use only basic attacks on everyone, which means every turn taken will give AV stacking damage and Health and 35% tm, and Daka 50% tm. When Traya comes out of topple, and revives the 3 sabers, use Asajj Ventress’s aoe attack as soon as possible, as long as there is one Saber without foresight, the death of this saber will cause her cooldowns to refresh, which means that as soon as she takes her next turn, she will be able to kill the rest of the sabers, if they didn’t all die in the first time. Because Old Daka’s heal also revives allies, you will only be able to use Asajj Ventress’s first special and Nightsister Zombie’s special to heal your team, and both of these should be used during topples. When you are about to hit enrage is when the run gets more complicated again. If Nightsister Zombie is not frozen, she can use Stand Alone to take the first Isolate, otherwise then use Old Daka’s heal during the last topple before the Isolate, if either Daka or Ventress are low on health and have Healing Immunity, then use Stand Alone on Initiate, otherwise leave it to chance. Repeat this process before each Isolate during enrage, until at some point you will have lost Initiate, and since Talzin already used Stand Alone, she cannot use it.
Once you are down to only Daka and Asajj with Stand Alone capability, then your main priority is to keep Isolate off of Asajj, even if it ends up on Daka. At this point it becomes more than just a tool to eat Isolate, since both will have Healing Immunity which doesn’t go away, the damage from Bonds of Weakness will slowly be building up, then you can use it when one of them gets low to get that one killed before Isolate, which will allow them to revive the other, who can then heal back to full health. This is the recommended use of it at this point, and is more important even than keeping Isolate off Asajj for 4 turns, as she will still be hitting very very hard, and will still gain stacks from grave assists she calls during her turn, although she won’t gain them and therefore the turn meter on Daka’s turns, which will cause your dps to drop dramatically, and the rng chance of the run crashing and burning to climb. At some point, rng will catch up to you, having run out of tricks to fend it off, and you will go down. The question is how far you make it.
This is an extremely rng dependent team, which brings along all the pain that comes along with it, first introduced with Chex Mix, although a bad run from this team is still much better than a great run with Chex Mix. Speaking from personal experience, I have made it only a single turn past enrage in one turn, my team getting steamrolled so fast I couldn’t even retreat, yet the next day survive 15+ turns past enrage, and get 4 times my previous score.
Now why does this only work in phase 3. The answer is pretty simple. Both Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion have an aoe attack special, and Darth Nihilus’s does percent damage, plus just flat out higher damage, meaning that your team cannot survive more than one round of it. On top of this, Stand Alone only exists in phase 3, and Annihilate from Darth Nihilus is almost guaranteed to screw up your run, plus it is much harder to get Talzin and Initiate killed without doing too much damage to the others in p1. In phase 2, Sion’s aoe attack does absurd damage, and will instantly end your run after enrage. Beyond that, he also doesn’t have a super high damage attack before enrage, which makes it very hard to get Initiate and Talzin dead. In phase 4 all of these issues apply, and Traya in phase 4 hits super hard single target damage on her basic, and will wipe out a character each time she goes, 2 or 3 hits for Daka or Asajj, but your team gets destroyed, plus again no Stand Alone, and she can’t be toppled, which is also a problem with Nihilus and Sion.
In phase 3, Bonds of Weakness allows for the health on Daka and Asajj to ramp up, while keeping the incoming damage consistent, causing Initiate and Talzin to die first, setting up the Deathstorm. On top of this, Stand Alone allows for more control of the run, reducing the rng element after enrage for at least some time. Finally, Darth Traya is the only raid boss in the game without an aoe attack on a special, and so instead her light aoe damage on her basic, combined with the fact that her damage isn’t that high even after enrage, allows this strategy to work well.
That is all. If you have any questions, dm me on Discord at superawesomepi#1512, or ask in the questions channel in my Work in Progress HSTR and STR Discord server Link: https://discord.gg/BNJsveu
Thank you.
-Darth Triumvirate
