Beth'tilac - Defeated 05/07/11

[TeaLeaf]

http://ptr.wowhead.com/npc=52498

[TeaLeaf]

The PTR was open today for testing on Firelands 10-man and we were able to get some time with Beth'tilac. Unfortunately the US servers got a lot less time with this boss than EU and we only got eight or so attempts in before the server was shut down.

Beth'tilac is the spider boss first previewed by Blizzard at the end of April. She ended up being a fairly simple fight. Of course, as usual for the PTR, she was untuned and will most likely change in the future. The encounter has two easily defined phases: the first is a kiting phase, the second is a burn phase. For phase one, you split into groups for below her web and on top of it; for phase two, everyone groups up underneath her web and you must kill her before her increasing damage is too high while dealing with a debuff similar to Gluth's Mortal Wound.

Overall, it's a fun introductory fight and seems to serve well as a gear check for the zone.

As for the more detailed explanations, phase one starts when she's first engaged--she retreats up to the safety of her web. You have to have players follow her up there or else the raid takes damage from Venom Rain so you want to immediately split up your raid into top and bottom groups.

If you're assigned to go up top, you must use web string that drop from the sky to climb up onto her web. Only one person can climb up per string. You can DPS her while up there as well and there are Cinderweb Spinners that create her web; they hit for a low amount of damage on players (~1400) and are negligible, their purpose is just to create more web strings to return back up. She casts Smoldering Devastation three times during phase one. When she begins to cast it, those up top must jump back down to avoid taking damage and then must return up top when it's over.

On the bottom part, Cinderweb Drones would spawn one at a time; these are larger, hard hitting spiders. Our second tank picked them up. Since the raid itself took very little damage comparatively, this made it a very tank healing intensive fight (especially in phase two). The Drones themselves needed to be kited around the room because tons of little Spiderlings were spawned every once in a while by Beth'tilac and they would give chase, damaging those in their path. If they got close enough to the Drones, the Drones would eat them and gain a buff called well-fed as well as get healed. It was essential to make sure that didn't happen--the Drones already hit hard enough and this buff makes them hit for more.

To help combat this, we had players switch from the Drones to AoE down the Spiderlings when they spawned and then switch back. We also noticed that the Drones would try to head to the center to climb back up if they were not killed in the right amount of time. We didn't have any climb up successfully, so we didn't see the benefit they gave her, but they would more than likely kill the tank up there.

Beth'tilac herself operates with an energy meter as said earlier and casts Smoldering Devastation. After casting this spell three times from above, she drops back down from the web and start phase two. When she came down, she started to gain a stacking damage buff called Frenzy. She also casted The Widow's Kiss on the tank. This implies that there's supposed to be a tank rotation, but we couldn't make it through them because Frenzy was stacking too quickly and our tanks were getting wrecked. It's very probable that the rate this stacks was altered to be quicker in just to ensure no one defeated her besides those who found an exploit or a way to bug out the encounter; a couple guilds killed her by getting her to bug out and get stuck on the web, so she'd cause no damage but could be attacked still without resetting.

That's all there was to the fight--it's a simple, enjoyable one. Even more notably, Firelands itself is looking gorgeous. It has perfect ambience and some of the best textures World of Warcraft has had. Despite the lag and lack of a completely functioning interface that comes with the PTR, we have a few screenshots to show you of her lair and the zone itself. Tomorrow begins another testing session for a different boss and we'll be there to check it out!

[TeaLeaf]

The misconception I see with this boss is in the management of the raid. In a lot of ways, this is a burn phase in three small transition parts, and then a final fourth burn phase.

To accomplish downing the boss correctly, Cinderweb Drones and Spiderlings get priority, specifically because Drones will siphon off fire energy from Beth'tilac. The spiderlings are hurtful because Drones and the boss can consume these for 20% of the spiderlings' health, as well as gaining speed buffs.

The goal is to make the three phases in which your transition team kills spinners to go upstairs and burn the boss as long as possible. By taking down drones fast, it negates their ability to drain energy from the boss, and by burning the spiderlings, you prevent the drones from getting back health.

On the PTR, most people noticed guilds staying 'up top' anywhere from 2 - 5 minutes, with some reports stating they kept those phases at 5 or more minutes at times. This prevents the boss from "over-enraging" (her Frenzy stacks are, as of now, so overly done and quick, there is a large need to extended those three transitions as long as possible to deal as much DPS as possible, and not be in the final phase for too long before the AOE and tank damage becomes unhealable).

[TeaLeaf]

http://25man.com/firelands/bethtilac

[hubbah]

ahhh the first fight is already awsome ( as far as i can read ) let me be the ranged killing the adds that come down from the celing hahaha

[Legolei]

ahhh the first fight is already awsome ( as far as i can read ) let me be the ranged killing the adds that come down from the celing hahaha

As far as I know, first four bosses can be done in random order, and after those 4, the other 3 become available in sequential order.
Nice add to prevent repetition of doing the same bosses in same order over and over again. Also makes it possible to start (the progression) with the boss that has the biggest chance to go down given the group composition.

[Arcticfire]

New bump:
 
[video=youtube;L8OQFgKTn_Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OQFgKTn_Q[/video]
 
http://www.learntoraid.com/2011/06/17/bethtilac-video-strategy-guide-10-normal/
 
We will be using this tactic as it seems, read the text(I had to scroll down a bit).
Melee prepare to go up and ranged prepare to stay down.

[Legolei]

http://25man.com/firelands/bethtilac

Website unavailable :g:

Decent video:

Too late, Dreaman posted while I was editing....

And, eh, well, it does make some sense combined with the other:

[video=youtube;rchFnurtmI8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rchFnurtmI8&hd=1[/video]

Anyone who can translate it? :blink:

[TeaLeaf]

[hubbah]

been watching a few youtubes on the boss from differnt perspectives and this really should be a pushover :-) cu in a few hours ppl :-)

[Grimnar]

Melee DPS point of view:
 
First of all this boss is pretty boring for melee dps:narnar:
 
 
At start of the fight if you can taunt then you taunt a few spiders to get some lines up to the top platform.
 
platform tank taunts his own one, and he has to go up first directly followed by his healer.
"you" as dps if able taunt one for the healer that needs to go on top if that is needed, if not just taunt 2 or 3 of them for the aoe group and then yourself as last go up and just dps the boss.
 
 
Platform:
 
Just nuke and stay going fullout on the boss!
The things to look for are mainly the meteors! make sure with that, that you have enough space to move around. not that you are just next to one and have no room for another there.
Those meteors create holes and you will end up with the aoe group and maybe even cause a wipe because of it. So stay away from those always look at where you are standing.
 
second thing you have to look for is the boss his energy bar. It drains pretty fast so you don't have alot of dps time on the boss. when that bar reaches 0% you NEED to drop down to the aoe group.
 
After drop down kill some adds and start taunting the spiders that come from above again. and all that repeats for 3 times.
 
 
Last phase:
 
Just stand with your healers behind the boss and nuke the crap out of him!
Save or make sure you have your dps boosts ready for that phase. The classes that have aoe healing also make sure to use that in the last phase.
 
 
Very simple and easy but boring fight for melee dps.
 
 
 
**for the ferals in the guild**
 
something for you to know to boost your dps and help out your group.
 
Once you are on the platform at the start of the fight, put in your first rotation of rip and rake. right after that use your first "beserk". You won't have a second option for beserk later on so use it at that point.
Beserk will then be ready again for when you enter the last phase but only when you used it when first time up there.
After first drop down use your innervate on one of the healers in the aoe group. Also with that it will be ready for the last phase again for a healer that needs it at that point.
 
 
for the rest happy killing

[Tirkad]

Ok, this time i was on the air combat squad with twisted and grimnar. Basically from my point of view the most important things can be resumed as follow:
-ALWAYS let the tank call when he's going up, the healer should follow as soon as possible, then the dps if any.
-You must avoid the meteors: once you've got the eye for it, it's easy since you have many seconds to get out of the fire before the actual impact.
-Call out for healer range, if needed. Just before you'll have to get down, there will be many holes in the floor, so it may get a bit messy positioning wise.
-As healer, save your mana. You shouldn't need to use many big heals there, so it's a good thing to use a mana efficient rotation there. The best time to use mana replenishments like Divine Plea (cooldowns implying debuffs), is when you'll have to get down: it takes about that much time and you will not be healing much anyway.
-In the final phase, rotate healers and tank cooldowns to grant the maximum efficiency, thus granting the widest time span for the ranged to do their job beforer the soft enrage hits. It is suggested to use mana replenishments like Hymn of Hope just before this phase and use the Heroism keeping in mind that it will last 40 secs (if i recall correctly for us it was about 30% of the boss hp, but may be wrong there since i was too busy healing).

[Arcticfire]

Did you guys have 2 dps or 1 dps going to the top??

[Grimnar]

Did you guys have 2 dps or 1 dps going to the top??

 
Only 1 melee dps on the boss.
 
RGT ran this fight with only 1 melee dps.

[Slush]

The best part of this fight.... There is nothing on the floor!

So, just keep in the middle and you shall get healed. Of course, people will run off to tank/dps/get a beer, but... do encourage them to come back into middle when their task has ended.. There will be AoE splash heals coming in like never before!

Phase2:
What triggers phase 2 on this fight is a timer. After 3x Smoldering Devastations, phase 2 will start.
And I have to say... It lasted very long.. Some thoughts:
A) Running with 2 melee upstairs, we would have had Beth on lower hp before phase 2 starts.
B) Running with 3 ranged, we would have had less damage downstairs to drones and such = more inc damage and less control. But: When 2melee and a jumps down to help out (just before Smoldering Devastations) , these adds would be dead fairly quick.