[4.2] Firelands 10s – Beth’tilac

Like Shannox once we figured out the little details and worked out our communication, Beth’tilac was a straightforward kill.

Raid Group

• 2 Tanks (Bear, Prot Paladin)
• 3 Healers (Resto Shaman, Holy Paldain, Tree)
• 3 Melee (Rogue, DK, Enhance Shaman)
• 2 Ranged (Warlock, Shadow Priest)

For the first part of the fight the group is split unevenly into two teams; the Ground Team and the Web Team.

The Web Team consisted of a tank (Prot Paladin), a healer (Holy Paladin), and a melee dps (Enhance Shaman).  The Ground Team was everyone else.  We found it most helpful to have the strong single target healing Paladin with Beacon of Light up top, with the Shaman and myself (the Druid) on the ground.  At first we sent the Rogue up top, but later found that his slowing poison was very useful for the Ground Team.

Encounter Overview

The fight is split into two phases; the web/ground cycles and then the final phase.  The web/ground cycles will happen three times in a row and the remainder of the encounter is a DPS burn phase with a healer related “soft enrage.”  The goal in the web/ground cycle is to hurt Beth’tilac as much as possible, which will reduce the duration of the burn phase.  However, damage on Beth’tilac will be slow going during the web/ground cycles, and getting Beth’tilac only to about 70-75% before the final burn phase is fine.

In addition to Beth’tilac, there are three different types of spider adds that appear throughout the first phase of the encounter; Spinners, Drones, and Spiderlings.

Spinners hang from the ceiling and continually cast fireballs at random raid members.  While hanging they cannot be tanked, but they should be taunted.  Once taunted, they come down to the ground and then can be tanked.  More importantly, they leave a web pile on the ground that connects to the ceiling.  When you hover your mouse over the pile, you’ll see the green “mounting” arrow, and if you click on it, you’ll be pulled up onto the upper web.

The Drones must simply be tanked.  They always appear from the southwest corner of the room and should be tanked where they spawn.  These adds should be killed quickly because after they run out of energy, they will make their way to the upper web and join Beth’tilac.  We generally had our dps Death Knight focus on the Drone and the two ranged threw DoTs his way as they could.  If the Drone joins Beth’tilac, she will siphon power from any spiders on her web, healing herself.  Additionally, the Drone appears unexpectedly and has a good chance of killing your Web Team healer before the tank can get it under control (this happened to us whenever we couldn’t kill a Drone fast enough).

Finally, the Spiderlings.  These can be the trickiest adds to deal with.  They’ll spawn in a random corner (NE, SE, or NW) and scurry quickly towards the Drone.  If they reach the Drone, it will eat the Spiderlings, gain a buff and be healed, making it much more likely for the Drone to end up in the upper webbing and killing your Web Team.  DPS need to chase these Spiderlings down as quickly as possible.

Starting the Fight

To start off we all ran in as a group, staying together within Healing Rain & Efflorescence for mindless AoE heals.  The only mobs visible in this starting time are Spinners, which hang from the ceiling.  Tanks should taunt at least three of them down quickly and tank them, while DPS burn down the Spinners.  Occasionally, we had our dps DK taunt/Death Grip* a Spinner to pull them down for the Web Team.  The Web Team should take the web piles to the upper web, communicating in the following manner:

• The Healer should wait by the first web pile and announce they are ready.
• The Tank should move to the second web pile (which is hopefully near the first web pile).
• After hearing that the Healer is ready, the Tank announces that they are going up and the Healer should follow immediately.
•  The Web Team DPSer should take a third web pile shortly after the Healer and Tank have moved up.

We found this order of communication to be critical to successfully downing Beth’tilac.  Once all three members of the Web Team are up on the web, the three web/ground cycles start.

Web/Ground Cycles

During this phase, the Web Team is up on the web dealing with Beth’tilac.  The Tank should tank her, and the DPSer should focus on doing as much damage to her as possible.  The Healer needs to keep them both alive.  To complicate things for this team, Beth’tilac will call meteorites down on, burning holes through the web.  Raiders up top need to dodge these meteorites as best as possible while avoiding falling down through the holes they create.  After some time, Beth’tilac will cast an AoE called Devastation.  When this is about to happen, the Web Team need to jump down the center hole in the web and join the Ground Team.  It’s important to use the center hole since the webs here will break your fall.  If you jump through a meteorite hole you’ll take fall damage and likely die.

For the entire first phase of the fight, adds will spawn from different corners in the room that the Ground Team must deal with.  As mentioned above, the tank should grab the Drone and keep him in the southwest corner.  We had a dps DK stick with the Drone to burn him down.  The two ranged DPS split their time between the Spiderlings and the Spinners (which continue to appear from the ceiling).  While hanging, the Spinners throw fireballs at raid members, so they do have to be killed.  Our rogue stuck with the Spiderlings, using his slowing poisons to buy more time for DPS to burn them down.  A Hunter’s slowing trap or talented Moonkin mushrooms would likely work just as well, depending on your group composition.

One ground healer remained within healing range of the tank and DK, while the other ran after the DPS, chasing the Spiderlings.  Generally, the tank healer was also in range of the dps group and would help out there as needed.  As much as possible, the dps group tried to group up on the ground heals, though this was not always feasible since they had to focus on the Spiderlings.

Once the Web Team jumped back down to the Ground, the Devastation that Beth’tilac casts rains fire down on the raid, and we all grouped up as much as possible for AoE heals.  The tanks and DK taunted Spinners down from their webs, and once Devastation ended, the Web Team went back to the upper web in the same manner as before (tank and healer at the same time, dps following shortly after).

This cycle repeats itself, until the Web Team has gone up to the webbing for a third time.  After they return to the ground for a third time, the encounter enters phase two.  If there are any adds still living, they need to be killed asap.  Beth’tilac will come down from the upper web and siphon power from any remaining spiders to heal herself.

The Burn Phase

Beth’tilac needs to be tanked, it doesn’t really matter where, and then dps’d down as fast as possible.  She has a constant AoE damage pulse that gets stronger as time goes on.  Eventually, Beth’tilac will simply do more AoE damage then can be healed through and the raid will wipe. Coordinate and save your big AoE heal cooldowns (Tranquility, Divine Hymn, Power Word: Barrier, Rallying Cry, etc) for some point under the 30-40% mark to get yourself through the last portion of the fight.

All DPS should be grouped up behind her to make use of Healing Rain, Efflorescence, and Sanctuary effects.

The tanks will get a debuff called Widow’s Kiss that stacks itself up to 10 times before dissipating.  This debuff will damage anyone within 10 yards of the victim, so tanks should swap out and the affected tank should move a safe distance away.

Beth’tilac’s melee physical damage against the tank will also increase over time, but we found the raid damage from the AoE to be more problematic.

Final Thoughts

Other then the last half of the burn phase, healing this encounter was not too stressful.  You want to make sure you are watching your mana so that you can be liberal with it during the burn phase.  Also, there were sometimes an issue of healer aggro with the Spinners that we needed to watch out for.  The ground tank, or anyone with a taunt, should grab the Spinners away from the healers, and they can be tanked with the Drones if needed.  However, DPS should really be taking them out quickly enough that its not really an issue.

*Death Grip will not pull the Spinner off his line and towards the DK, but it will act as a taunt, bringing the Spinner to the ground and forcing him to drop the web pile.