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5 stacks+ Dreadtooth video & guide


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Hey there, we recently killed 10 stacks Dreadtooth and Dreadful Entity secret boss. Here are our guides and videos for those interested :)

 

Guide for Dreadtooth 1-10 stacks http://dulfy.net/2012/10/22/swtor-patch-1-5-dreadtooth-world-boss-info/

 

Video (10 stacks):

 

Guide for Dreadful Entity: http://dulfy.net/2013/02/06/swtor-dreadtooth-and-dreadful-entity/

 

Video:

 

Thanks to members of Hatred and APEX for the help :)

Edited by Iwipe
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Awesome! Thanks again Dulfy for posting boss strats.

 

You my favourite Sorc Healer [inserts obligatory exception for Guild Officers so they don't kill me].

 

Shriek looks like it's going to require everyone to actually be in the puddle rather than say "I got in it eventually."

 

Aside from 1-2 ranged dps staying to the back for Rock Throw, is there any other way to minimize Rock Thrown on the raid? Maybe bubble a Sniper and have them move 35m from boss?

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MoX will be posting our 10 stack kill shortly. In ours, you can see that we did a split up of ranged dps into two groups on the outside, keeping the group numbers on the smaller side. This meant that puddles were more effective on the concentrated group, making sure that everyone got healing as opposed to running the risk of random ticks on random people who may or may not need it. This was something we thought up of while doing 5 stack pre-nerf and it got us very far. Do what you think is best though, as sometimes you may not have the right classes/people on for certain tactics.
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MoX will be posting our 10 stack kill shortly. In ours, you can see that we did a split up of ranged dps into two groups on the outside, keeping the group numbers on the smaller side. This meant that puddles were more effective on the concentrated group, making sure that everyone got healing as opposed to running the risk of random ticks on random people who may or may not need it. This was something we thought up of while doing 5 stack pre-nerf and it got us very far. Do what you think is best though, as sometimes you may not have the right classes/people on for certain tactics.

 

DPS wise my guild is good on this fight. But we'd appreciate all the tanking and healing advice you could possibly give.

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DPS wise my guild is good on this fight. But we'd appreciate all the tanking and healing advice you could possibly give.

 

Not much advice to give on tanking and healing...they just need to do their job. Heal what needs to be healed and cleanse what needs to be cleansed, tanks need to keep open communication with each other. Essentially, the encounter revolves around your dps and minimizing mistakes. The more mistakes they make, the more risk of dying and the more healers need to play catch up and you can't afford that on this encounter. Lose too many dps and you won't make soft enrage (drouk hunter falling off)

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Hey Dulfy - good job on getting 5 stack down, 10 isnt much harder so im sure you can get it soon.

 

I am just going to post our 10 stack strategy here along with our entity strategy. Mainly I don't think I should be making a 4-5 thread on the same topic. Best of luck everyone!

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Dread Entity Strategy -

 

First some general notes:

Dread Entity is spawned by using the dread amulet obtained by defeating 10 stack DreadTooth in section x in the "Secret Cave" inside of TFB 16 Man HM. The cave is found inbetween the second and third bosses below the bridge right before Dread Guard.

All raiders must have the Dread Mask dropped by DreadTooth at any stack level (at 3 stacks + he drops 2x masks which will accelerate your pickup rate).

 

Raid comp:

Standard 2 tanks - 10 DPS (melee vs ranged dont really matter, but I think ranged will make it easier) - 4 healers (we personally had 2 sage and 2 scoundrel)

 

Entity Abilities:

There are a few things to point out here - the first are the stacks that he starts out with. He has two set of stacks - one decreases his damage done and the other decreases the damage taken. He has an ability essence swap - which will lower the damage taken stacks (so that he takes more damage) and raises his damage done stacks (so that he does more damage). I will refer to this ability as Stacks.

 

Dread Touch - no idea what it does, if you want to find out then don't wear your masks

 

He has an AoE knockback that will knockback the entire raid ... about 15 meters or so.

 

He has a random knockback that will knockback one random person seemingly around 50 meters.

 

He will put damage amplifying stacks on the tank that increase damage taken but seemed fairly innocuous.

 

He laid down "pools" that did some AoE damage - around 1-3k a tick. These pools do not dissapear and need to be avoided (thus the constant movement of the tank).

 

The pull, positioning, and tank path:

When summoned at the entrance in the cave by using the amulet - the entity will appear towards the back and doesn't seem to immediately aggro. However, we immediately pulled with our tank. Here's the trickiest part of the entire fight - pulling him away from the exhaustion zone. We kept our raid group in front (behind the tank) and the tank dragged the entity as fast as we could along the wall and around the two corners into that first walled in section. From there we did a slow kite around the room leading back up the staircase towards the lobel all the way close to that first cave (we killed before we reached the cave, ultimately.

 

Strategy:

As already mentioned - the tank needs to be constantly kiting the Entity. When moving around corners or in a fast pace - it is best to position the raid directly in the entity's path so that the knockback isn't as disruptive (thus knocking the raid group forward rather than behind). When not moving fast - it is best to position your raid towards the center of the room, essentially for the same reason and to prevent any accidents - obviously having your back to a wall helps as the knockback wont move you far, slingers can hunker down to avoid knockback.

 

We used a tank swap when the stacks on the tank reached 20.

 

We interrupted the "Stack" ability cast for as long as we could. The ability actually casts .2 seconds faster each time and eventually becomes impossible to interrupt. The stacks for the damage amplifier actually got to 12, but did not seem impossible to heal through.

 

There does not seem to be an enrage timer but we assume the stacks can go up indefinitely (they reached 15 on one attempt).

 

The most important parts of this fight are avoiding devastating knockbacks and positioning yourself correctly to avoid line of sight issues, otherwise the fight is fairly simple.

__________________________________________________________________

Dreadtooth 10 Stacks Strategy:

 

Raid Comp: (24 man ops) 2 tanks, 8 healers (5-6 sages), 14 DPS

 

Boss abilities:

 

Directed at tanks:

Sonic Paralysis: a 5 second frontal cone cast that stuns the current target and which after the cast will drop the threat of that player. Requires a tank swap. Starts at roughly 75%

 

Exhaustion: Shortly after the sonic paralysis cast this will be cast on the current target which should be a tank. It will also knock the tank backwards. It doubles the damage on the current target and requires a tank swap.

 

Rock Heave: Cast after sonic paralysis at the tank with current aggro. Spawns a red circle on the ground and is completely avoidable by the tank.

 

Directed at Raid

Rock Toss: Directed at ranged members of the raid.

 

Smash: Proximity based AoE that knocks players into the air.

 

Ground Spike: Spawns red circles underneath players that needs to be avoided. Begins at the 50% mark.

 

Shriek: An AOE cast that lasts 6 seconds and is cast roughly every 20-30 seconds. Begins at the 50% mark.

 

Electrify: Immediately after shriek is cast the boss gains this ability and reflects all incoming damage back at the player.

 

Enrage: Enrage happens when the Doruk Hunter buff wears off. At this point everyone in the raid will get the Dread debuff and die very quickly.

 

The Pull:

The tank needs to pull the boss and position his back near a wall to not get knocked out of range. The DPS and healers will then run behind the boss to avoid the frontal damage.

 

Strategy:

 

Tanks:

 

Phase 1:Once Dreadtooth has been pulled into position the current tank will hold the boss until the 75% mark.

 

Phase 2: Around this time Dreadtooth will begin to cast Sonic Paralysis on the current tank. The stun and following aggro dropped can be avoided by using stun breaking CD's but is not required. If the current tank eats the stun he will have his aggro dropped and the second tank needs to taunt immediately . Within 2-5 seconds after the swap dreadtooth will knock the new tank back and put a debuff on the tank called exhaustion. The previous tank needs to take the boss back otherwise the tank with exhaustion will be taking double the damage for 20 seconds. Dreadtooth will also do a rock heave which needs to be avoided by the tank. It is best for the tank who will be taunting to stand at dreadtooth side as he will slow the tank taunting off to avoid having the DPS and healers hit with any frontal damage.

 

Phase 3: At the 50% mark Dreadtooth begins spawning red circles on the raid and casting shriek. The tanks need to stop damage just before shriek ends to avoid the damage from electrify. Dreadtooth will still continue to cast sonic paralysis and exhaustion which needs to be handled like the previous phase. Be careful though as Dreadtooth will sometimes cast sonic paralysis and then shriek before the exhaustion lands on the tank. Immediately after the electrify he will usually cast exhaustion.

 

DPS:

Phase 1: Once the tank has gotten aggro the DPS will begin on the boss. The ranged will be getting hit by Rock Toss at random and can move in closer to the rest of the group to avoid getting hit with more rocks.

 

Phase 2: At 75% the fight continues the same for DPS as in phase 1. Except dots begin to appear on random members of the raid and those hit by Rock Toss. Any DPS with a cleanse needs to remove this from themselves and be on the look out for it.

 

Phase 3: At 50% Dreadtooth will begin to put red circles on the ground. Everyone needs to avoid these to reduce the damage going out as this is a very heal intensive phase. Dreadtooth will also cast shriek at which this time it's best to group up for AoE heals. Right before the shriek cast ends the DPS needs to stop attacking so that they don't kill themselves from the reflected damage. As soon as electrify ends Dreadtooth will throw up more dots on random players which again needs to be cleansed off by that player if possible. The phase continues this way until Dreadtooth is dead. It is also helpful to have your ranged DPS away from your grouped up melee so the red circles get spread out a bit more.

 

Healers:

 

Healers priority is to cleanse dots and keep everyone else up. It is wise to assign your non-sage healers (2 is a good number) to just heal the tanks and assist with cleanses. Save healing circles for the 50% phase - also a good idea to shield a few people before this goes off (Especially those without defensive cooldowns). After every wave of pulse, you want a few heal circles to come down to top everyone off.

 

Differences between 5 & 10 stack:

 

The major differences noted seems to be that

1) The bleed effect does more damage

2) Red circles that begin at 50% seem to spawn faster. About the same as the spawn changes from HM to NiM Zorn & Toth circles. There are also 3 circles instead of 2.

3) More of the bleed effect dots seem to go out (they are casted more often).

4) Exhaustion seems to be cast on the tank just slightly faster than 5 stack.

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Thanks for the info on the tanks. I wasn't exactly sure on the tanking mechanics there other than the needed tank swap. As for the DPS, there isn't a distinction between phase 1 and phase 2 you listed. The dots will appear in phase 1 as well.

 

See proof: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth.jpg

 

I am not convinced that the DoT is random as the DoT appears in combat logs as Ground Spike (Bleeding) and in every single attempt in my log combat logs only appears with Ground Spike (the actual hit). If you look into your combat logs and sort by chronological order, this should be pattern. Note that the DoT appears 1 second before the actual Ground Spike but it is registered that way as the DoT will tick the same time as the Ground Spike hit.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth-dot.jpg

 

The other thing I noticed is that in phase 2 (past 50%), sometimes it seems like the boss still do Rock Toss as you will get hit by rocks and receive the DoT even without a red circle beneath you. You will see rock toss animation instead with rocks flying at you rather than spikes from under you. The damage, however, still registers as Ground Spike.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth-fake-rocktoss.jpg

 

Oh another thing I noticed is that back in PTS Rock Heave had a castbar. This castbar was removed on live it seems, which initially lead me to believe that Rock Heave was taken out.

Edited by Iwipe
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Thanks for the info on the tanks. I wasn't exactly sure on the tanking mechanics there other than the needed tank swap. As for the DPS, there isn't a distinction between phase 1 and phase 2 you listed. The dots will appear in phase 1 as well.

 

See proof: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth.jpg

 

I am not convinced that the DoT is random as the DoT appears in combat logs as Ground Spike (Bleeding) and in every single attempt in my log combat logs only appears with Ground Spike (the actual hit). If you look into your combat logs and sort by chronological order, this should be pattern. Note that the DoT appears 1 second before the actual Ground Spike but it is registered that way as the DoT will tick the same time as the Ground Spike hit.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth-dot.jpg

 

The other thing I noticed is that in phase 2 (past 50%), sometimes it seems like the boss still do Rock Toss as you will get hit by rocks and receive the DoT even without a red circle beneath you. You will see rock toss animation instead with rocks flying at you rather than spikes from under you. The damage, however, still registers as Ground Spike.

 

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dreadtooth-fake-rocktoss.jpg

 

Oh another thing I noticed is that back in PTS Rock Heave had a castbar. This castbar was removed on live it seems, which initially lead me to believe that Rock Heave was taken out.

 

I wrote the entity strategy, another guildmate wrote the 10 stack modified from my original 5 stack writeup.

 

Couple comments:

I didnt mean the dot was random on when it hits (I agree with your assessment, btw) - I meant it was random on who it selects.

 

There's definitely a rock toss all the way through.

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Did a bit more testing with Dreadtooth

 

1) Rock Heave: This has a 4 seconds cast bar at low stacks but this castbar disappears at 5 stacks or more.

 

2) Rock Toss only exists above 50% but once you pass the 50% mark, there are two versions of Ground Spike. The kinetic version of Ground Spike is the actual red circles that hit really hard if you get hit by it. The elemental version of Ground Spike is the modified "Rock Toss" that is unavoidable and hits everyone in raid. The confusion (at least for me) was seeing people dying to Ground Spike when they said they weren't standing in the red circle. Turns out it was the modified "rock toss" past 50%.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ufrU4lZ.jpg

Edited by Iwipe
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