Totem Talk: Enhancement shaman vs. Beth'tilac and Lord Rhyolith
by Josh Myers 
Jul 2nd 2011 at 4:00PM
If you're an enhancement shaman in a regular raiding guild, congratulations! You've weathered the worst of the storm. Our last-minute Stormstrike buff coupled with the nerfs to 4.1's prominent DPS has put us in a nice place for entering Firelands raiding. Our single-target DPS is solid now. Even better, Firelands has practically no fights with silly AOE phases that we have to participate in! If that sentence alone doesn't get you pumped for 4.2 raiding, I don't know what will.
That doesn't mean there aren't fights with AOE phases. On the contrary, both fights I'll be talking about today require good AOE. Thankfully, that busy work is best left to your casters. They can cry about it all the way to their legendary. Fortunately for us, Lord Rhyolith and Beth'tilac are the two encounters in Firelands you'll most likely encounter first, and both have unique mechanics that are well handled by the apt hands of a masterful enhancement shaman.
Lord Rhyolith
The mechanics of Lord Rhyolith are fairly simple: He starts the fight with 80% damage reduction. Every time he steps on an active volcano, his armor is reduced by 10%. Once he hits 0% damage reduction, he starts taking increased damage. Damage starts to ramp up very quickly, and you soon reach 25% hit points. Once that happens, he shucks his armor and starts AOEing the raid for tons of damage while you Bloodlust and frantically mash DPS buttons until he dies or your raid group does. (Why he doesn't just lose his armor at 100% hit points and AOE everyone down before he hits 70%, I'll never know).
The main thing to remember on Rhyolith is that it is not a DPS race. Because of how long the fight he spends with damage reduction, the amount of damage you do is not really relevant. You have two basic priorities.
- First, stay alive. Dying at the wheel of Rhyolith means your passengers die with you, so avoid all Magma Flows you can and Shamanistic Rage and Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem the ones you can't.
- Your second priority is to make sure you're always aware of which foot you're DPSing and which foot you're supposed to be DPSing. Fast, clean target swaps are key here. Nameplates, be they regular Blizzard UI ones or an addon like TidyPlates, are really effective at keeping you on the correct foot. Remember to re-drop your Searing Totem after target swaps!
If your guild is getting comfortable in the driving and you're starting to look to maximize your DPS on this encounter, I've got a small secret for you: Fire Nova. The legs are really close to one another, close enough that you can fire off two Unleash Elements-buffed Flame Shocks on both and use a Call of Flame-talented Fire Nova to keep them both rolling for the entire leg phase. While doing this, use Earth Shock as your primary shock cast. Not that I would ever condone such behavior of course, but think of me as the Wikileaks of shaman information, sharing the goods your raid leaders don't want you to know.
(P.S.: If Lord Rhyolith drinks the lava and wipes your raid, I plead the Fifth.)
Beth'tilac
Do you ever notice how the fantasy genre has an obsession with making every monstrous spider in the world female? Lolth, Shelob, the Lesbian Spider Queens of Mars from Lesbian Spider Queens of Mars ... the list goes on. Beth'tilac, the giant flaming spider of Firelands, is no different -- a burning broodmother who is so nasty and evil that Kerrigan looks like a good friend. (Seriously though, can we please get an evil, manipulative, monstrous spider that isn't a commentary on gender stereotypes?)
For your ranged friends, this fight is essentially Lord Rhyolith. They stay on the ground floor and AOE the tiny spiderlings that like to be eaten by the bigger spiders. When the sacrificial spiders are dead, they switch to the larger Cinderweb Drones and single-target them down. Yawn.
For us trusty melee, the fight is entirely different. At the beginning of the encounter, Cinderweb Spinners will descend from a giant spiderweb up above. You're the Orkin man, and these guys are your priority. Kill the spinner, and use their web as a silk grappling hook to climb up into the incendiary spiderweb above you, where you and the rest of your melee group will engage Beth'tilac.
What's that, you say? "But Josh, I can't stand on the spider web, it's on fire!" Never fear. In order to make sure you understand the distinction between partially on fire and super-duper on fire, Blizzard has added impossible-to-see fire patches that spawn randomly under players on the spiderweb. If you can discern these red and orange blotches in the midst of the other red and orange blotches that is Firelands, you can happily chop at Beth'tilac until she's ready to blow. If you didn't see the fire beneath your feet, you will probably fall to your death.
Beth'tilac has an energy timer whenever you're above her web, and once her energy gets to zero, she starts casting Smoldering Devastation. This is your cue to jump through the many holes in her spiderweb, in which strange, beneficial spiderwebs will low you to the ground. After Smoldering Devastation, the process repeats.
After your third phase on the top of the web, Beth'tilac comes down and enters the fray with your entire raid. At this point, the fight becomes a mad burn phase that lasts 3+ minutes. Bloodlust, Potion of the Tol'vir, and rage to yourself at how incredibly lackluster a DPS cooldown your Feral Spirits are. Use Stoneclaw Totem on cooldown to aid healers' mana, and try to save your Shamanistic Rage for in between healer raid cooldowns. Be aware of your own hit points, and heal yourself if you need to. If you survive, collect loot. (Oh wait, nothing really good for enhancement drops here. Forget that last part!)
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on rep gear, heroic gear, and raiding gear, plus tips on maximizing your utility skills and tactics for raiding Blackwing Descent.
Filed under: Shaman, Raiding, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Angus Jul 2nd 2011 4:30PM
The reason all the evil spiders are female is simple.
Male spiders are wussies.
Seriously wussy.
The Black Widow has her name for a reason. The lucky males are the ones that can lull her into a sleep-like trance, do their biological imperative, and escape with their lives. The majority of them, dinner.
Ever seen a scary looking spider? Probably female. The male ones are smaller, less dangerous looking and run like hell usually.
As for the bosses, nice insight. I had not even realized how cool call of flame is now.
S.O. Jul 2nd 2011 4:32PM
Tarantulas. Boom! Your welcome
Ragnuk Jul 2nd 2011 4:44PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kJ09FpWoaM
raven.quiet.storm Jul 2nd 2011 4:47PM
Key to an easy Beth tilac: Add control. I don't want to toot my own horn here but one thing I realized: Ring of frost works on the little adds that heal the big adds... 3 mages and you got all 3 areas covered (in 25 man), and just burn it down...
dj.clayden Jul 2nd 2011 5:58PM
"(Why he doesn't just lose his armor at 100% hit points and AOE everyone down before he hits 70%, I'll never know)."
Hell, raid bosses are stupid.
Heroic Lich King waited while we kicked the shit out of him for 15 minutes, before revealing he could 1-shot the entire raid with a short spell. If I could 1-shot every enemy within 50,000 yards, I can assure you I would not let them damage me for 15 minutes before mashing that button ^_^
Angus Jul 2nd 2011 6:04PM
He had to be sure we were worthy of being his new Generals. He was grooming us to be it all through Northrend, after all.
Of course, I'd probably take you killing everyone else in my tower as good enough for an application for the job.
Thereone Jul 2nd 2011 10:32PM
You linked to Atiesh on purpose, didn't you? Sneaky, sneaky!
Josh Myers Jul 3rd 2011 12:31AM
If I smile innocently would you believe me if I said no?
Thereone Jul 3rd 2011 9:48AM
Nope! But like you, I am going to savor the delicious QQ as casters bicker, relationships fail and lifelong friendships turn to bitter hatred as guildies try to figure out who gets the legendary first :P
Matrillik Jul 2nd 2011 11:04PM
Two questions for nitpicky shaman:
When AOEing, is it better to use UE-powered flame shock or UE-powered Fire Nova. My guess is it really depends on how many adds and how long you will be AOEing for. Meaning long duration sessions get empowered shocks and short ones get empowered Novas because the shocks likely won't tick to their full effect.
2nd: With the new Call of Flame talent, does the new flame shock that triggers from the nova maintain the empowered flame effect or does ti refresh similar to the shadow priest mind flay refresh on SW:P (refreshes with new spellpower/mastery rather than casted one)
Josh Myers Jul 3rd 2011 12:50AM
Just checked, it doesn't actually keep the unleash buff. In fact, as soon as you Fire Nova, it starts ticking for the non-unleashed amount. >.< Due to that, you're going to want to be spending your unleashes on Fire Nova any time there's an aoe phase and multiple flame shocks out.
Kraatshiff Jul 3rd 2011 6:07AM
Male spiders are usually a lot smaller than the females, so if you made I giant scary spider male the to make him big enough the females would have too HUGE. So I guess the female would still be scarier no matter how big the male was.
just the thought of a biology student/shaman.
Buendía Jul 6th 2011 6:28PM
i have a doubt...
i recently raised a dwarven shaman as Enhancement (one of the more fun to play characters i've done so far) and when i hit 80 and started doing cataclysm zones i decided to try using a spellpower weapon in my mainhand, and ialso learned to always try to get as many mobs as i could with Flame Shock to optimize my dmg with fire nova.
The results were great, testing in the training dummy i was doing A LOT more dmg with the spell weapon v/s using an agility weapon,and in the dungeons i was doing great with dps as well..
but now, with 4.2 there are two changes that afect this situation.
on the plus side, now is easier to do a lot of damage with fire nova thx to the refresh thing that call of flame now does, and the increase of damage it got, so the spell weapon seems to continue a good idea
but on the down side, since stormstrike now does a lot more dmg, and it hits with both weapons, it seems that using a spell weapon (with a much lower dps than a agility weapon) is a lot less eficient.
soooooooo.... should i stick to using a spell weapon as my main, or should i change to a higher dps weapon loosing the spellpower but increasing the damage of my stormstrike?
thanks in advanced in case respond to this :P
Mandarin Jul 22nd 2011 11:08AM
Any chance we can see a link to your screenshots in a bigger version? I can't see your addon placement or any details in your nice screenshots (i.e. the last screenie in this post with Beth'tilac looks great, but I can't read anything with the 580x326 images).