Re: Nihilus doesn't take any damage on Phase 4 of the Heroic Sith Triumvirate Raid

Woops wrong link this one https://youtu.be/C_Bb7OFbTl8

Look at protection not drop even though no defense down.

Nice! Apparently we have to do EA's work because they simply won't test it to see if it is WAI.

And yes, I've noticed that DN stops taking damage (even when he DOESN'T HAVE protection) after a long series of consecutive turns from the NS (i.e. when you drop 10% of his health and he hasn't taken a single turn) or when the run is already on the 40%+ damage done.

Sometimes using an special ability that is an attack wil again do damage to DN.

BTW, healing sometimes doesn't work either, even when there's no Bond of weakness, or they're really low (not more than ten)

Next Raid I will record it, let me know if I can help.

Look at the second video again for gods sake once defense down has been cleansed watch when asajj uses special and after that. WATCH PROPERLY A HIT FROM ASAJJ WITHOUT DEFENSE DOWN SHOULD CLEAR NIHILUS PROTECTION. I HAVE DONE THIS RAID FOR 6 MONTHS I KNOW THE MECHANICS.

Hey @najwa2012 - I watched the video. When your Nightsisters (including Ventress) hit Nihilus, his purple protection bar clearly drops.

However, given how little it drops, the conclusion is that over the course of the battle, you have allowed him to drain so much protection that his max protection is probably in the millions. And whenever he takes a turn or consumes some minions, he heals a certain percentage - which is why you see his bar go up around the 1 minute mark after he took another turn.

Without seeing the entire battle, it's impossible to determine exactly what happened, but the end result is that Nihilus' protection is so large that you will need to chain dozens of hits in a row just to reach his health pool.

Edit - attached a screenshot of a very high scoring NS run.  The run scored 10.5M points, but if you add up each character's scores, they did a total of 4.2 Million damage to protection.  Given that Nihilus' protection bar rarely fills up above 10%, that means his protection bar likely was over 5M max protection!  This means that there are ways for Nihilus' protection to become astronomically high - and this screenshot is from a run where Nihilus had plague for most of the battle.  

I've been watching this question about Nihilus's protection in my P4 NS runs for quite some time now.  By way of adding to jkray622's comments:

In runs where I successfully land plague early in the attempt, it becomes increasingly difficult to break Nihilus's protection after he takes a turn.  By the end of the attempt his protection has grown to the point that it's almost unbreakable.  I see this happen more often on plague runs than non-plague runs, and i suspect that it has something to do with how Nihilus registers damage from plague.

Here are the questions I have based on this - how does Nihilus process damage from multiple stacks of plague when attacked with and without the DD debuff, and is how he does this working as intended?  Here is what I have observed:

-As jkray622 mentioned, Nihilus’s max protection drain also recovers protection for him.
-All damage caused by the plague debuff is credited to Mother Talzin when she uses her basic, regardless of which unit is targeted.  I’m not sure if this also applies to the damage Nihilus suffers from the plague debuff on each of his turns.
-If Nihilus has multiple stacks of the plague debuff, his protection drain is triggered on a basic attack from MT even when she doesn’t have the defense down debuff.  I’ve seen this when targeting Nihilus with MT’s (sans DD debuff) basic.  I’m not sure if it applies when MT targets another unit when she doesn’t have the DD debuff.

Consider the following situation:
Nihilus has 4 stacks of plague.  MT attacks him with her basic while she has the defense down debuff.
    Does this trigger his protection drain 1x (all damage is counted as one attack), 2x (basic damage and total plague damage are counted separately), or 5x (basic and each plague stack hit are counted separately)?

What happens in the same situation if MT does not have the DD debuff?  From my observations, his protection drain will still trigger in this instance, but to what degree?  Does MT gain the DD debuff after her basic attack damage is counted, but before the plague damage from her basic is counted?

If individual plague ticks are triggering Nihilus’s protection drain mechanic, that could explain instances of extreme protection values at the end of an attempt.

Can you (really) check this? It's obviously not working as intended and you can see several proof about it.

Hi all, as promised, I looked more into the interaction between Phase 4 Darth Nihilus and Nightsister teams (Mother Talzin Zeta) and here are my findings:

Things to take into account:

• Darth Nihilus ability in Phase 4 of the Sith raid: "Lord of Hunger" which states: "At the start of his turn, Nihilus recovers 3% Protection for each buffed enemy. In addition, whenever an enemy damages Nihilus with a Basic ability, he inflicts Defense Down on them for 1 turn. If they already have Defense Down, they lose 25% Protection and Nihilus gains that much Max Protection (these effects can't be Resisted)."
• Old Daka basic ability "Insightful Blow": "Deal Physical damage to target enemy with a 75% chance to Stun them for 1 turn. Deal Physical damage to a random enemy with a 55% chance to Stun them for 1 turn."
• Mother Talzin basic ability "Ichor Lightning": "Deal Special damage to target enemy and, if they are Plagued, inflict Plague for 3 turns. Deal Special damage to all Plagued enemies which can't be Countered."

What causes Darth Nihilus to stack up a very large amount of Max Protection. Main factors are:

Old Daka using her basic on Darth Nihilus:

• If Old Daka has Defense Down and both times she deals damage with her basic land on Nihilus it results in Nihilus gaining 50% of Old Daka's Max Protection being added to his own Max Protection. So let's say Old Daka has 20.000 Max Protection, if the previously mentioned scenario occurs, Nihilus gets 10.000 added to his own Max Protection -> Working as intended.

Mother Talzin using her basic:

• If Darth Nihilus has Plague and Mother Talzin has Defense Down, when using her basic ability, she will deal Special Damage 2 times (once from the ability and another Special damage from Plague). This will result in the same Max Protection recovery for Nihilus as mentioned above for Old Daka. -> Working as intended.
• If Darth Nihilus has Plague and Mother Talzin has Defense Down but uses her basic on Sion or on the minions, Darth Nihilus will still receive Special Damage for being Plagued, and will still gain 25% Max Protection.

In regards to this part that @NoHalfsies mentioned:

"-If Nihilus has multiple stacks of the plague debuff, his protection drain is triggered on a basic attack from MT even when she doesn’t have the defense down debuff."  

If Mother Talzin doesn't have Defense Down but Nihilus has Plague, the following occurs: Talzin deals Special damage, gains Defense Down, then deals Special Damage to all Plagued enemies which results in Nihilus gaining 25% Max Protection because the damage comes from a character which has Defense Down and uses a basic ability. It has to do with the order of operations. -> Working as intended.

Only by taking into account the two scenarios mentioned above, it explains how at the end of a long Nightsister run in Phase 4 a player can no longer get through Nihilus's Protection when he is close to Enrage. 

Hope this helps.

Thats the thing  my protection is gone. I have defense down and i hit with basic. How does he take protection from me and add to max health when i have no protection. Lord of hunger doesn't state that nihilus takes from your total protection from beginning or base protection. It just states if u hit he takes your protection  (25% or whatever and adds to his max protection). If u dont have protection he shouldnt be able to steal it.

Just bumping this thread.

That's my problem/query as well, Nihilus stealing protection from my characters that have no protection left. 25% of zero is still zero, right?

You're probably right, not the first time ability text has been a bit ambiguous/wrongly worded.

The whole setup is a bit weird then, the idea comes across as Nihilus is draining your protection & taking it for himself, so when your out of protection it seems like he's stealing it from out of thin air, or from the past.

Bit like the tax man.