Healing Heroic Beth’tilac (video guide)

The third Firelands heroic that we tackled was Beth’tilac.  It was a fairly fun fight to heal, and I definitely felt growth in how I approached healing it during our attempts leading up to the kill.  For the encounter I am assigned to heal one of the spiderling/broodling DPS at their assigned cave.  Of the three heroics we’ve done so far, I feel that this one has the biggest healing push as well as DPS push to get through it.  It has challenging moments during phase 1, and takes literally everything you got by the end of phase 2.  I had a lot of fun with the encounter, and I hope that you do as well!

Please note that this video will be best viewed at one of the higher resolutions.

A Few Notes!

• Barkskin – Even if it’s something that you regularly forget to use, you should be using it here.  If for no other reason that to try and conserve some healer mana.  Barkskin every time that Beth rains on the raid in phase 1, and then on cooldown in phase 2.
• Timing Haste Cooldowns – I touched on it very briefly in the video, but wanted to address it in more detail here.  You should make every effort to time your haste cooldowns, when possible, for when you need more burst healing in the encounter.  During the rain in phase 1, and anytime during phase 2.  I like to start the fight with my SoW for my first WG and Rejuv on my soaker and myself going into my opening tranq  and then coming out of the tranq activating NG to help stabilize the raid, even if it’s just a couple of GCDs worth of WG.  Maximizing when you use that haste will be extremely helpful for this encounter.
• Managing Your Mana – I have yet to have any other encounter this tier that has taxed my mana they way this one has.  I work very hard to try to manage my mana going into phase 2 so that I enter into it at at least 75%.  I innervate after the first spew phase as soon as power torrent procs, and then on cooldown afterwards.  I make a conscious effort not to heal more than needs to be done during the first phase.  I use nourish as a filler on my soaker when I can get away with it, and even though it’s not the most effective use (hps wise) of efflorescence, I still rely on swiftmend to help get my soaker topped up because it’s cost effective and if he stays in the efflorescence, it’s cheap healing.  I’m careful about how much rejuv I toss out in the first phase.  I always pot.  I usually use a mana potion, but I think I could probably sneak in a concentration potion early into phase 2.  However, we have a number of healers who are hurting significantly more for mana than I am, so I usually yield that time for them to pot.  By the end of the fight, all of your healers will be feeling the pinch.
• Tree of Life – I’m not 100% sure that I like my second ToL timing, and I’m still debating if it would be better to use that latter in the fight when you are more pinched on mana and Beth is hitting much harder.  It’s a tough call because you want to conserve as much mana as possible early in phase 2, but there is still a fair bit of healing to be done.  Which, ultimately, is why I opt for ToL at that juncture.  I’m going to play around with moving where I use this cooldown in phase 2, and would encourage you to find a time in the phase that you  think it fits your healing, and the needs of your healing team, best.
• The Healing – We use seven healers for this encounter.  We’ve used any combination of our healing team while learning the fight.  We send only two healers up to the web (a Holy paladin and a Resto Druid or Holy Priest), have one healer assigned to each of the three caves/soakers, and have two healers assigned to the drone tank/raid.  When Beth spews on the raid in phase 1, everyone does what they can to help keep the raid alive.  In phase 2, we have two healers on the tanks and the other five dealing with the raid damage.
• Communication – I cannot stress enough how important communication is for this encounter!  Your broodling teams need to communicate with each other, as well as their back ups when they miss one, are focused by the drone, etc.  If a broodling makes it to the raid during the spew, it’s likely that you are going to lose members of your raid.  The best thing you can do is communicate.  It’s equally important that your web team have strong communication as well.  Your web tank should call out when he’s up, the web healers should communicate when they are up, and the DPS should only go up after those two things happen.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions!  Good Luck and Have Fun!