SWTOR Dread Master Bestia Dread Palace operation guide

Dulfy 22 Comments Oct 3, 2013

A guide to Dread Master Bestia, the first boss of Dread Palace operation introduced with SWTOR Patch 2.4.

Bestia is at the end of the pathway on bottom right entrance of the palace (Sanctuary of Dread).

Storymode

Loot: Unassembled Arkanian Earpiece, 1 random piece of Black Market gear (no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 4 Elite Commendations.

HP: 1.30 million (8m)

Recommended gear: Artifact gear or above. You may want to have some Black Market/Arkanian gear just to be safe.

Differences from hardmode

Phase 1: Dread Tentacles do not have the one shot Spit attack and Dread Monsters do not buff each other if they get close.
Phase 2/3: There is no tank swap debuff from Bestia and she does not buff Dread Monsters nearby.

Hardmode

Video

Loot: Unassembled Dread Forged Earpiece/Bracers/Belt (rating 178), 1 random pieces of Oriconian gear (rating 178, no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 6 Ultimate Commendations, 8 Elite Commendations.

Recommended gear: Underworld/Verpine. Kell Dragon is more than sufficient.

HP: 2.05 million (8m)

Enrage timer: Unknown

Phase 1

Dread Master Bestia won’t aggro you unless you attack her first so you can stand next to her. She won’t come down engage you until phase 2 so phase 1 is just dealing with her adds. Bestia will come down and activate phase 2 once you have killed 4 Dread Monsters or it be based on a timer. Be sure to kill the Tentacles first since if you leave them up when Bestia becomes active they can explode and kill some raid members.

a) Dread Tentacle

Will randomly target someone (announced in red text) and cast an attack called Spit. If you do not interrupt this Spit attack, the tentacle will one shot whoever it was targeting. The cast is 8s so should give you plenty of time to interrupt it. Kill these tentacles first if possible so you don’t have to worry about missed interrupts.

b) Dread larva

Cast an AoE attack called Expectorate that hits for ~6.5k damage to the raid. These guys should be killed next after the tentacles.

c) Dread Monster

These guys have a bit more HP and also buff each other if they get close (they have the “enraged” graphic when this buff is active). Raid will need to split these guys apart and also keep them away from Bestia in phase 2.

Phase 2

Dread Master Bestia will come down in Phase 2. Phase 2 continues until Bestia reaches 50%, at which point she will cast Gathering Forces and start phase 3.

She has a couple of abilities you need to beware of

Stacking debuff on tanks. Tank should swap generally at 4 stacks but sometimes we let the tanks get to 8 stacks. If you have more than 5 stacks of this debuff and Bestia uses her Dread Strike (channeled attack) on you, you will take a ton of damage.

Combusting Seed. Red circle placed on a random raid member. This circle moves with you and will explode shortly dealing around 18k damage so move away from the raid when you get it. You will want to be topped off and/or bubbled if you get this circle. There is also a debuff icon that ticks down so healers can tell easily who has the red circle.

When you get this circle, you want to keep moving as much as possible as you can get the Dread Pool debuff at the same time which is also a red circle but doesn’t move with you.

Dread Pool is a red pool placed under a random raid member. This pool ticks for ~12k damage per tick if you stand or move inside it. Normally this pool isn’t hard to spot/avoid but you can get this pool dropped on you at the same time you get the Combusting Seed circle so this makes it very hard to spot. Even if you do manage to spot the pool and move out of it in time, the explosion from Combusting Seed circle can kill you.

Phase 3

Phase 3 is just a combination of phase 1 and phase 2. Bestia will use all of her abilities from phase 2 and summon adds from phase 1 (she will also say My pets are legion! Behold!)

Bestia will buff any Dread Monsters near her so tank them away from her.

iceberg265

You sure about the four monsters thing? I am almost positive she was coming active sometimes when we had only killed two. We could not figure it out. Maybe its just four of any of the adds?
- Dulfy
  
  It was always 4 Dread Monsters for us. Could be based on a time limit?
  - Anthrobeau
    
    We are fairly sure it’s based on time.
- Will McBurney
  
  I can confirm it is time. We cleared it on Sunday. We (Infernal Harvest – Jung Ma) typically had the fourth monster at about 25% when Bestia first attacked.
  
  We did the following:
  
  Kill left monster first (tanks keep them apart). Move right, killing the weak adds before burning down the second monster, then move left, doing the same. The 4th monster would be the only thing up, and we’d usually kill it a few seconds after Bestia came down.
  
  Our DPS numbers were roughly 2350 Average for the whole fight, which was barely enough. So that should give you a bench mark.
Cyxapu

This is first boss of dread palace?:)
- Dulfy
  
  Yes
Anthrobeau

There’s one mechanic you don’t have listed. We found that if a tentacle is the last add up, or maybe if it’s up when Bestia goes active, it will explode shortly after and one shot anyone in the area. It took out 2-4 people each time.
- Guest
  
  2 days ago my raid was killed by the tentacles’ explosions and we didn’t know how to deal with it. So we have to kill the tentacles 1st right ?
- Dulfy
  
  Thanks added
darkfather

This first boss is ridiculous even on SM in full 72’s or better. Fought it 10 times in two different groups (both 16 man) and no dice. Too much going on in too small of a space to see anything or click anything half the time. People are also getting the graphical glitch where the first phase of adds can’t be seen or targeted. I have gotten it every single time myself. So, if you get the glitch you cant do much but AOE. Broken.
Krakadoom

Drops belt, not bracer (or both)
_arc

Could someone submit a bug report (or at least rebalancing request) for Bestia story mode 16 man? Unfortunately I can’t post anything on the official forums because my account is bugged, and nobody seems to be discussing this.
Check the combat logs on torparse, it states that expectorate is hitting 14k each time on 16 man story mode. Meanwhile, it is only hitting 2-3k each time for 8 man. (And I know this is story mode because nobody is hitting tentacles).
I’m not saying it is impossible, because I have gotten past, but it just seems a little unbalanced – especially with the extra numbers and more people getting hit by aoes. Given it is random, one player could get hit twice = instant death. Pug healers in 66 gear are simply not going to cope.
- _arc
  
  Finally found a 16 man log – think it is SM. It’s a bit odd, searching through all the logs, not every single group seems to get 14k expectorates (But maybe the ones that aren’t were doing HM?)
  Figure searching commando/slinger dps logs best, so then at least they should be hitting the tentacle if it is up?
  http://www.torparse.com/a/459718/44
  - _arc
    
    Sorry for posting several times, here’s another log – 13k expectorates in 16 m sm
    http://www.torparse.com/a/460443/8
    Compare to a (I think) 16m HM, where it does a bit less:
    http://www.torparse.com/a/464690/11
    The only difference (in damage taken) seems to be pulverise, from 10k to 4k.
    The expectorate hits for roughly the same amount, i.e. double the amount of 8m hard mode and 4x the amount in 8 man story mode.
lacusar

Enrage is around 8:00 or 8:30 minutes
Nakira

I noticed that the guide for this fight is pretty sparse on details, and the strat from the video doesn’t work too well if your dps aren’t top notch, so I thought I would share what my guild has had success with to help out all the other groups out there that aren’t able to beast through the adds like Hatred 🙂 This let us down it no problem in mostly 72s with a new and somewhat inexperienced dps in 69s.

Phase 1:

Divide the raid up. 2 dps will be on add duty at all times. We used our 2 ranged for this. They kill tentacles and small adds when they pop. The other 2, for us the melee, stay on monsters. Main tank will grab the monsters as they pop, and hold them. One healer is dedicated to just keeping that tank alive, while the other heals everyone else and drops heals/shields on main tank when they can. Main tank can easily survive tanking three monsters at once this way (for short-ish periods) if your dps is slow. Off tank peels off one monster at a time from the main tank’s pile to avoid having to burn through the defense buff when killing them. Dps focus that separate monster, making sure that the ranged drop off whenever small add/tentacles need to be killed.

Phase 2:

Bestia came down for us when two monsters were left alive, one of which was wounded. Offtank grabs all the remaining monsters and main tank gets Bestia. Melee dps hop to Bestia and ranged finish off the monsters. Tanks trade off as usual, around 5-6 stacks, but also swap the monsters to keep them away from Bestia. First swap or two might require the aoe taunt if two monsters are up, which they may be, since they are being killed through the defense buff now. Once monsters are down, just burn Bestia and tank swap. This is the easiest part of the fight. Rest up and regain resource for next phase.

Phase 3:
This seems odd, but dps should ignore Bestia when adds are out for the first part of the phase. Enrage timer is very generous here, trust me, you should be fine. Kill the first two (or three, if your heals aren’t super confident) monsters as they pop. We did two, and lost a tank right at the end of the fight to a stack of three monsters, which rapidly turned things into a mess (luckily she was at about 3% at the time so it was all fine). So three may be safer, and you should have plenty of time. We still had about 45 sec to enrage when Bestia went down.

For the first part, tank who doesn’t have Bestia grabs the monsters, and they swap as at the beginning of phase 2. Ranged continue to drop off monsters to kill tentacles and small adds. Once second (or third) monster falls, dps pile Bestia. Ranged need to keep on the tentacles and small adds but otherwise burn Bestia. The tank without Bestia picks up any more monsters as they come out. Don’t forget the tank swap, which gets tough as monsters pile up because it requires the aoe taunt to grab them all. Sin tanks can use their stealth out strategically to give up the monsters to the other tank, if you have a sin tank with you, but it’s not critical. Tanks may need to wait for a few more stacks between swaps for the taunt to cool down- but NOT more than 8 or you will probably die. You should down her with plenty of time till enrage, even a little undergeared.

Hope this helps some of you guys out there so you don’t have to trial and error your way through like we did 🙂 Happy killing.
- Larlitte
  
  The question is how do you kill monsters on off tank since when monsters are staying together, they buff eachother with reduced dmg taken ( and you say you are getting 3 monsters together).
Jarjar

enrage time if you have to adds coming on the 2nd phase
Alix in MV

FYI, if you’d like to update the guide, I noticed doing SM Dread Palace last night that they were kind enough to change the color of the Dread Pool from red to yellow. Makes it MUCH easier to see and differentiate from the Combusting Seed reticule.
- Apharan
  
  Hard Mode too. I want to say it was in the patch notes but I’m lazy and don’t feel like checking right now.
DocVak

Dulfy, why is there not a guide up for Nightmare Bestia? It’s very obvious you’ve cleared it cause you have guides up for the rest, so where’s Bestia?
- Moxnix
  
  She’s purposely withholding it.

SWTOR Dread Master Bestia Dread Palace operation guide

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