SWTOR Dread Council Dread Palace operation guide
A guide to the Dread Council, the final boss encounter of Dread Palace operation.
Storymode
Loot: Unassembled Arkanian Chest, 1 random Underworld Token,, 1 random piece of Verpine gear (no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 4 Elite Commendations.
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
- Tyrans only sends out 1 Death Mark (instead of 4 on hardmode). This Death Mark is always a skull icon.
- You have 200 seconds (over 3 minutes) to get the 3 other Dread Masters to 50% once one of them is pushed to 50%. This means that you can pretty much just focus and burn down one Dread Master at a time instead of having to coordinate their burns.
Phase 3/4
- Like in hardmode, you want to bring everyone but Calphayus down to 25% (Calphayus should remain above 30%) before burning them down to 15% to trigger phase 4.
- There is a soft enrage in phase 4 in which the AoE ticks for harder and harder but there is no stacking debuff.
Hardmode
October 15 changes
- Calphayus, Raptus, and Tyrans can no longer be damaged while they are inactive in the first phase of the fight. Previously you could damage them before they went active.
Video:
Loot: Unassembled Dread Forged Mainhand (rating 178), 2 random pieces of Oriconian gear (rating 178, no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 6 Ultimate Commendations, 8 Elite Commendations, Praxon Pyroclast speeder.
Recommended gear: Underworld/Verpine. Kell Dragon is more than sufficient.
Enrage timer: Unknown but it is fairly tight due to his high HP.
Phase 1 – 100-50%
Bestia will become active first, followed by Calphayus, Raptus and finally Tyrans. They each have their own separate abilities and the raid will need to split up to deal with them.
- Bestia – Tanks will need to be on her and tank swap whenever they get 3-4 stacks of her debuff.
- Calphayus – Offtank will need to be on him when they swapped from Bestia, a melee DPS should be chasing him around
- Raptus – a high mobility rDPS should be kiting him (i.e. DoT spec’ed class is the best).
- Tyrans – Doesn’t need to be tanked or kited. We stick 2 rDPS on him that swap to Bestia when Tyrans reaches ~55%.
Abilities
Bestia
- Force Push attack that will throw you across the room – stand in the very middle of the room or face yourself such that you will get pushed to the middle of the room.
- Places a stacking debuff on the tanks that requires tank swap as it allows Bestia to deal more damage and potentially one shot the tanks at high stacks. We tend to tank swap at 3-4 stacks or after 2 Force Push.
- Corruption aura around her that buff any other Dread Master standing next to her (increases their damage done and reduces their damage taken.
Calphayus
- Has a shield around himself that reflects all damage coming outside the shield. Melee DPS is the best candidate for this
- Regularly drops orange circles on the ground. Any player standing in it will have their healing received reduced and any Dread Master standing in it will take reduced damage.
Raptus
- Deadly Slash attack with frontal knockback (purple telegraph on the ground). Either run out of it or run into him to avoid the knockback.
- Also has a Whirlwind attack where he will spin and chase a player. Stay outside the red circle or you will take massive damage.
Tyrans
- Periodically cast out 4 Death Marks on the raid. Each Dark Mark has a different icon and different duration. If the Death Mark is allowed to expire on the player, it will instantly one shot them. I have labeled the 4 marks here with ranking based on their duration (1 is the shortest). Anyone with a cleanse can remove them, including agent/smuggler’s Evasion skill. This leaves just tanks/melee DPS without cleanse and healers should prioritize them first.
- Also casts Thundering Blast, a blast that will hit anyone in the path of the blast. Hits for ~10k damage as long he doesn’t get buffed by Bestia.
- Pulls random players to him, this is more of an annoying for people kiting Calphayus or tanking Bestia as the pull can screw up their pathing.
Pushing to phase 2
Phase 2 will trigger if all four Dread Masters get to 50% HP within 40s of each other, When the first one reaches 50%, that Dread Master will return to his/her throne and start channeling Siphon Energy. It is a 40s channel and at end of the channel they heal up. What this means is that you need to push every Dread Master to ~55% and then together as a raid, starting pushing them one at a time to 50%. Once the first one returns to the throne, you have <40s to push the other 3 to 50%.
Phase 2
In phase 2, the ghost form of Styrak and Brontes will return. One player will need to head to Brontes’s throne, go through the portal, and interact with the crystal on top of her throne to remove her Supremacy buff, which will make her immune to damage otherwise when she gets low. One of the tanks will need to go and do the same for Styrak. Styrak is taunt immune but getting this crystal the the subsequent buff seems to make him sticking on the tank with the buff.
- Bronte’s throne is to the left of the entrance if you are facing the entrance. Styrak’s the throne is to the right of the entrance.
You want to drag Styrak and Brontes together so DPS can AoE both them of at the same time. There is a timer for getting this phase as each of the 4 other Dread Masters have a buff called Weakened. When this buff expires, they will jump down and enter the fight. If this happens and Brontes and/or Styrak still remains alive then you are going to have a very bad time.
Styrak should die fast as he gains a stacking buff that increases his damage output. After Styrak is dead, get Brontes to 20% and stay away from the entrance. Brontes will cast her Overcharged Beam attack which will always point first at the entrance. This beam will one shot players if they get hit by it.
Phase 3
Phase 3 is much like Phase 1 except there is no tank swapping on Bestia since she doesn’t put the stacking debuff on tanks anymore. Two DPS should head to Tyrans and Raptus’s throne and grab their crystals. The buff they receive seem to allow the the specific bosses to stick on them.
- Tanks can grab the crystals from Bestia and Calphayus to prevent their abilities from autocrit, dealing more damage than necessary.
We also do a bit of rearrangement of the DPS in this phase compare to phase 1. Calphayrus’s DPS will switch to Tyrans, Tyran’s DPS will switch to Bestia and Raptus’s DPS remains the same. Calphayrus seems to cast Dark Empowerment if you bring him to 30% HP or below and this wipes the raid if he finishes casting it. Even if you push to phase 4, he will keep casting this ability.
You want to bring Bestia to ~20-25% and then get everyone else except for Calphayrus to around the same % (Calphayrus should remain above 30%). Then push one of the Dread Masters (we picked Tyrans) to 15% and this will trigger phase 4.
Phase 4
Phase 4 is soft enrage phase where all four Dread Masters will gather around the holocron and do perioidic damage that increases with time as their buff stacks get higher. Every Dread Master should be fairly low in HP except for Calphayrus which you should kill last. Focus your DPS on one Dread Master at a time.
For healers, if the healing becomes a bit hard to keep up, focus on keeping the DPS alive as the tanks are not tanking anything in this phase.
