Telos: Stunning Properly & Mechanics
Introduction
Stunning Telos takes some getting used to, but with enough practice and knowledge you can greatly enhance your performance from higher survivability to longer window of time to DPS. This guide will assume you primarily use Magic, but Melee can also tap into many of these fundamentals with some changes. Unfortunately, as Ranged does not have an equivalent to either Destroy or Asphyxiate, it cannot stun-lock Telos to the same degree as either Melee or Magic and therefore will not be included much in this guide.
Attack Speeds
You vs Telos
⬥ You attack every 3 ticks / 1.8 seconds (GCD), 4 ticks / 2.4 seconds if you follow up with 4TAA
⬥ Telos base attack speed is 4 ticks / 2.4 seconds, 3 ticks / 1.8 seconds while in green beam which you generally don't need to worry about
Stuns
Basic Stuns
Impact 
/ Backhand 
/ Binding Shot 
only stuns when it hits for 1.2 seconds. 100% ability damage with 15 second cooldown.
Threshold Stuns
⬥ Deep Impact 
/ Forceful Backhand 
/ Tight Bindings 
only stuns when it hits for 3.6 seconds. 200% ability damage with 15 second cooldown.
⬥ Asphyxiate 
/ Destroy 
always stuns regardless of accuracy for 3.6 seconds. This is your best stun. Up to four hits of 188% ability damage per hit with 20 second cooldown.
Non-stuns that Break Freedom
/ 
do not stun but bind, which breaks his Freedom nonetheless. Simple to apply with 4TAA if using Magic, and sticky bombs are also easy enough to throw mid-rotation.
Other Stuns
⬥ Dreadnips 
can randomly stun for 4.2 seconds, but can be detrimental at higher level play. Avoid using if following a very specific rotation, but can be decent for learners.
⬥ Jade bakriminel bolts (e) can randomly stun for 4.8 seconds, but can be detrimental at higher level play and are outclassed by ruby/hydrix bakriminel bolts regardless. Avoid completely.
Telos's Freedom
Enrage Cooldowns
⬥ 150%-249%: 30 second cooldown between Freedom use.
⬥ 250%-999%: 20.4 second cooldown between Freedom use. On P5, when Telos uses Freedom he has stun immunity for 6 seconds, then can be stunned in that 14 second window.
⬥ 1000%-4000%: 9.6 second cooldown between Freedom use. On P5, when Telos uses Freedom he has stun immunity for 6 seconds, then can be stunned in that 4.2 second window.
Mechanics
⬥ Procs whenever off cooldown and if he was bound/stunned between Freedoms.
• Example: At 150% enrage, if you bound or stun Telos immediately after Freedom, Telos will always use Freedom exactly 30 seconds after the previous one, even if you didn't bind or stun Telos after that.
⬥ Right when Telos uses Freedom, his attack cooldown resets and he tries to use his next attack 2 ticks / 1.2 seconds later, even if he just used an attack.
⬥ If Telos Freedoms right after he uses an attack, Telos would attack in 2 ticks instead of the usual 4 ticks / 2.4 seconds.
Note: This is bad and should be avoided!
⬥ If Telos Freedoms 1 tick before his next attack, he must wait 2 additional ticks before using his next attack.
Note: This is good as it acts as a stun!
⬥ If you proc his Freedom immediately by using a stun ability like Impact or Deep Impact, he will attack on the same tick you can use your next ability.
• Do NOT try to stun immediately after a stun if your first stun triggered Telos's Freedom! The clip below shows how to properly circumvent his Freedom.
General Stun Combos
To maximize stun time, you have to play around both Telos's Freedom and combo your stuns in the best way possible.
Stun Combos
⬥ Longest possible stun uptime below 1000%:
• Magic:
→ (3 hit) →
• Melee #1:
→ (3 hit) →
• Melee #2:
→ (DW) → (5taa) +
Note: "5TAA", or "5T" for short, is doing an autoattack with 2H after using an ability with DW. More info can be found in #Melee DPM Advice, but this 5TAA wastes just enough time between Destroy and Forceful Backhand yet still gains damage to allow for the longest stun duration. You can even replace Forceful Backhand with a bleed Destroy , 5TAA, then use Forceful Backhand !
⬥ A slightly more damaging, yet shorter stun by one tick stun combo:
→ → 
⬥ If Telos has Freedom up:
+ any ability, 
most recommended → any ability → (3 hit) → .
• At 1000%+, Telos will even Freedom after Deep Impact , allowing you to follow up with Impact for even more stun time.
• Below 1000%, you can add Impact before Asphyxiate .
⬥ Melee has it differently due to sticky bombs. They're a bit more tricky to use, but they don't rely on stopping your abilities to apply them. To pop Freedom perfectly, you need to throw the sticky bomb right as Telos attacks. Doing this will achieve the same result Ice Barrage can. You may need to delay your actual ability rotation for the best stun time possible, but at least throwing the bomb itself shouldn't be too bad.
⬥ A beginner friendly way without 4TAA or sticky bombs:
Pop Freedom with / → use any ability as long as it's not a stun → (3 hit) / (3 hit) → / .
Note: While this combo is not as efficient as using 4TAA or sticky bombs, it's relatively easy to do and doesn't require anything extra beyond abilities.
Common Mistakes
Actions to Avoid
⬥ Stunning as soon as Telos attacks makes Telos attack quicker and wastes the stun. Instead, you always want to make sure you stun right before he does any attack.
⬥ Following up a Telos Freedom immediately with a stun. If you use a stun right after popping Freedom, you will waste either the entirety of (Impact / Backhand ) or waste most of Asphyxiate ( / Destroy and Deep Impact / Forceful Backhand ).
⬥ Using stuns immediately after another without waiting properly or just mistiming it. This can range from canceling Asphyxiate too early to following up Deep Impact with Impact too quickly to simply mistiming the follow-up stun. Be sure to follow these timings perfectly if you want the maximum stun uptime!
Stun Applications
Tricks
⬥ All of the above stun combos can work from P1-P4 to maximize stun time. Sometimes it's more efficient to go maximum DPS as stated in the other channels, but in general these stun rotations do lead to the most damage possible before any special attacks/etc.
⬥ At the start of P2, P3, and P4 with Magic, there exists a special stun combo you can do. As Telos takes longer to start attacking you and you can pop Telos's Freedom losslessly with 
+ any slow ability like Wild Magic 
or Corruption Blast 
, all with dual wield. Then you do (3 hit) → → . This normally lasts as long as the → → + combo, but as both you and Telos take one tick longer to start attacking, the overall stun uptime is still as long as possible with a perfect Freedom at the end.
⬥ When using Detonate 
inside fonts on P4, you want to release with → → (3 hit) → . This guarantees you will do the 37.5k damage needed to quickly phase him into the next font while preventing Telos from doing anything.
⬥ As a backup, you can force out an to pop Freedom, then one tick later use your normal stun combos. This isn't as efficient as a carefully laid out stun rotation, but if you need to improvise, this can easily save you before any potentially bad situation.
Stunning P5
Starting at 250% and above, when Telos Freedoms he gets a 6 second stun immunity on P5. This further punishes bad stunning, but you can still work around this and stun Telos as long as possible.
When the phase starts, Telos will always Freedom immediately, which turns out to be a waste for him as you can immediately follow up with stuns after getting inside the green beam and setting up your Sunshine 
. Telos will Freedom again afterwards, but by this point your stuns will be on cooldown so once they come back, you are free to stun again.
At 1000%+, you can no longer stun him as easily. As you only have a 4.2 second window to stun, you only have room for one long stun like Asphyxiate or Deep Impact . Fortunately with enough raw DPS you can circumvent that fine enough, but should you be lacking in DPS in some way, knowing how to stun properly can still make the difference between a death or a kill. In general, you want to stun Telos after he does three autoattacks after his Freedom. This works no matter if you're in the green beam or not.
Pay attention to when the Freedom happens and when he gets stunned, which is three attacks after Freedom.
Target Cycling at Telos
Target cycling can be used to tag earlier on phase 1 and phase 5.
For phase 1, you need to trigger GCD (using Devotion 
) wait 2 ticks then Surge 
in (mid-gcd) and sun on the next tick. Wait 3 ticks then use Target Cycle and an ability. Be aware that if your first ability splashes, it can cause Telos' first auto to hit 2 ticks earlier.
In phase 5, you can Target Cycle the tick after the font moves as in the animation below. Alternatively, just Target Cycle as soon as you see Telos' head pop up, or as soon as you see the yellow dot on the minimap. Your target range must be set to max for this to work.
Telos Target Cycle Comparison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveIsE9Y0C8
P1 Walk
If using deto/wm strategy for P1, it's important to make sure you are either south or west of Telos to ensure your deto wm hits are all on the same tick. You do this by checking walk direction with your combust at start, running to the edge of your sun in the opposite direction. Next, run out of your sun immediately after an ability and escape back 2 ticks later. More specifically:
⬥ If West walk, run to the east to drag Telos and escape back into your sun. When walking your second combust, click one square under Telos to walk it, then click on Telos again 1t later to stay on his west side.
⬥ If South walk, run to the north west of your Sun and run north before escaping/running back south.
Video Examples of West and South Walk P1
⬥ West Walk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hNGDNHdiM
⬥ South Walk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDxlekndiaA