Mythic Helya

[Deleted]

Hi all,
we just coming back from christmas break and going to start on helya mythic - a couple of questions for you:

1 - We have noticed guilds spending an incredible amount of time wiping to phase 1 (1.5-2min mark). However, looking at videos, i'm not sure why - seems to be the easiest part. Is there something I am missing?

2 - We notice a lot of 4 healing (post nerf) but that shadowpriests (when more than 1) are not speccing S2M but are Mass dispelling on CD. Why do they do it over healers? Is it a mana point since you can stack up?

3 - Post nerfs I assume the DPS check is less tight in P2 and P3. Are there other issues that are creeping up for new kills?

4 - Any specific tips you can offer on fight?

Thanks
- sham

[shaunika123]

1. getting the hang of all the positioning with debuffs and orbs is probably the hardest part of the fight, the healers have to move A LOT, and they have to get used to that, that's why there are a lot of wipes in the first 2 minutes, also quite frankly p3 is the easiest part since by the time ur there u've practiced p1 to eternity and it's basically almost the same
2. because you need to 4 heal it because of the dps requirement and there were 5 debuffs, we didnt use MD on our first kill tho(post nerf) only once at the very first debuff round on p3, we did however use a warlock with imp for the tank dispel
3. it's less tight but p2 is still tight as fuck since the tentacles themselves havent been nerfed, and she has to die in p3 before the 5th-6th wave or the dmg is way too much
4. try try and try some more it's the type of boss that everyone has to know when to be where exactly with precision and it has to become second nature, dont be afraid if it it takes a lot of tries, it took us 451

[Ebalina]

Interested in tips as well.

[Tanthalas]

Helya is about practice, she strongly depends on multiple people in the raid and mistakes from them cause raid wipes and not just casual combat res and good to go.


Phase 1
Percent of wipes until first kill: ~55-60%

# of abilities used during the phase:
6-7 sphere kites,
4 breathes,
12-14 tainted sea debuffs applications,
9 or 11 tentacle strikes.

Occuring problems, deadliest first:
1. Missed tentacle strike. Instant raid wipe.
2. Dispels – these you can separate into slow dispels, leading to those people deaths and dispels while people are not standing in groups, so that dispelled void zones cover a lot of square.
3. Bad kiting (kiter in a wrong position at the moment of start). Several deaths, leading to a wipe.
4. Slime's explosions on high hit points. Several deaths, leading to a wipe.
5. Tank deaths.
6. Other people deaths.

Details

Tentacle strikes
These come as combos, going one after another, ~4-5 second between the strikes. You may soak some of them as a raid, but you don't need a lot of immunes to sort that out.

These are the timings and our immuners allocation. During some of these strikes there're sphere kites and this allocation was built with that in mind.
Combo1: melee-melee 1 and 2, forming an intersecting angle. 1xMage Iceblock on their intersection.
Combo2: melee-back 3 (melee) and 4 (back). 1xRogue (cheat death or cloak of shadows, the damage is nature) and 1xDemon hunter.
Combo3: back-back 5 and 6 (back). 1xRogue (both cheat death and cloak of shadows or just a well-timed CoS). Different person from a Combo2 rogue.
Combo4: back-melee-back 7 (back) – 1xMage, then 1xHunter for 8 (melee) and 9 (back), since he can move in his turtle CD.

---At this point transition to the 2d phase should happen, but on early tries you may encounter one more set.

Combo5: melee-melee 10 (melee) and 11 (melee). Similar to combo1, intersecting angle. Hunter or mage.

Make sure you assign the most competent people. That's their only job – soak their tentacle strike, they should care about their dps ONLY after they're soaking their tentacle 100% of time.

Sphere kiting
Is actually ridiculously easy. You will have your kites "like in kill movies" on your first raid night. But it's much harder to do it correctly every time. So you will encounter mistakes, shitty kites and people dying all the time to it.

Theory: people that may be affected by each sphere kite (non-tanking tank, 1 healer and either 1 melee of 1 ranged dps) stay in one point. At the end of the cast everyone start running and get a dispel (most kites will have tainted sea debuffs applied right before or after the spheres).
Practice: people don't stay at one point, forget to run. The resulting machine of deaths cuts (un)suspecting victims.

Try to assign aoe sprints to every sphere kite. If you're lacking aoe sprints for some of them – make sure people know they should use their own sprints.

Dispels
For dispels, you need to practice. Tainted sea applies like once every 12 seconds and 1 shadow priest is not enough for MD, you need to have at least two. You still will have to make direct dispels too, since that spriest may be kiting sphere or something. 1 debuff will almost always hit an active tank and you have to dispel him asap too, because Helya hits like a truck.
And btw, if you go with spriest dispelling – he doesn't have a right to use PWS on himself, he won't have enough mana for mass dispels.

Breathes
At first, you will think, that you need a lot of space for handling other mechanics and will ask your tanks to aim the breath to the left of the center of the room. This is not true, you will need a little space. So perfect place for breaths is a bit to the right off the center if raid is also to the right.


Phase 2
Percent of wipes until first kill: ~5-10% or ~1 raid night.

# of abilities used during the phase:
2x big adds,
2x mariners,
6x mistcallers,
30x small adds,
8x tentacles,
2x series of damaging waves.

Occuring problems, deadliest first:
1. Mistcaller finished his cast. It's a wipe, even though you don't see it's impact immediately and think it's good to go. It's not.
2. You failed to kill both tentacles in a 5 second period. Helya will retrieve that tentacle and it'll reappear at the end of the phase, launching third fury of the maw ability. You can handle that tbh and even get a boss kill, so don't wipe – play it like the first part of the phase, practice.
3. General lack of dps. Fixes itself after several tries into phase2.

Details

Mistcaller adds
These are trying to cast a long cast. If they succeed – it's a wipe. It'll speed up the next set of adds on this phase and you'll be swarmed in them. Interrupting a cast deals 500k damage to whole raid. They don't have a school lock and immediately start casting next one. If 3 interrupters press their kick at the same time you'll get a massive raid damage. You should be careful with these interrupts.
Death knights are MVPs here. Hooking an add interrupts the cast and the add just stands there, waiting for the end of that imaginary cast he was trying to finish. If you have 2 dks in raid, you won't have much problems handling the adds.

Big add
Group that'll have a big add on their side should have better dps/burts. Mutilate rogues are MVPs here.
Tank the add next to the tentacle for cleaves. Tank has to run away from green aoe, because he has damage taken debuff on him and will be oneshotted.
Melees can take that hit – it's like 80% of HP without defensive cds. They may also run away or press their cds. Let them sort it themselves.

Mariner add
Should obviously be killed before aoe.

Tentacles
There will be 4 pairs of tentacles which you have to kil in a 5 second time window from each other, otherwise it's wipe. That's why you have to split your raid.

1 and 2 – on the left and right platforms. Big add is to the left. Mistcaller on each platform. Rage of the maw waves are happening.
3 and 4 – at the boss level, below the platforms. 1 mistcaller add spawns. Several waves of small adds spawn. No waves at this moment.
5 and 6 – exactly like 1 and 2, but now big add is to the right. We just swapped platforms. Rage of the maw waves are happening.
7 and 8 – at the back, like on heroic, just the central tentacle is missing. 1 mistcaller add spawns. Several waves of small adds spawn.
You have to kill those small add waves in a somewhat controllable manner – because you want to have some space left on phase 3 until wave resets the green staff.


Phase 3
Percent of wipes until first kill: ~30%

# of abilities used during the phase:
13-14 sphere kites,
10-11 tainted sea debuffs applications,
~5-6 breaths, with sixth possibly coming at 1-2% so you mostly need to soak it.
3-4 waves resetting the green shit,
3x mariner adds,
~20x small adds,

Third phase is very similar to the first – the tentacle strikes are missing and breath doesn't spawn slimes. Instead, mariner adds and small adds are present and breath mechanics is slightly different.

Occuring problems, deadliest first:

1. You don't soak a breath void zone, whole raid gets heal absorption debuff, several people become MCed (they turn into mistcallers from ph2 and attempt their casts) and wipe you. You may overcome this by blowing potent healing cds like tranquilities, I've seen a kill where this happened and still it was a kill, but you better avoid such shit-hits-the-fan situation.
2. Bad kiting and dispelling
3. You don't heal through heal absorption debuff, even though the breath was soaked correctly, and someone goes MCed. Damage him to break MC, interrupt casts.

Details
This is a first phase look-a-like, but it has it's own pacing.
Sphere kites come in a bundles of 3 and on this phase tanks are not affected, so it's 2 melees+healer or 2rdps+healer.

---Kites start almost immediately---
1. Ranged kite that should be kited back.
...Breath...
...Several small adds enter the battle field. They should be killed in spots that won't break your next kites...
2. Melee kite, several seconds from range kite end – it goes to the back too, near the ranged kite path.
3. Ranged kite and at this point whole raid moves to the opposite side.
...Wave resets a platform...
...Mariner enters the battle and should be killed ASAP...
...Rather lengthy period without any kites...
---Kites start again---
4. Melee kite goes back
5. Ranged kite starts closer to the middle of the platform – so that melee can continue to dps.
6. Melee kite goes back
...Whole raid runs into initial spot...
...Wave resets a platform...
---Kites scheme repeats from the start – kite paths stay the same, but breaths and waves happen at a little different times---
...Boss dies after 2 full cycles, at the beginning of the third – at 13-14 kite...


Breaths
You will most likely see 5 breaths during phase3. You need to soak 5 void zones which are spawned by each breath. Those void zones place 1mil healing absorb debuff on you with ~10 sec duration. If it's not removed when time runs out – you get mind-controlled and transformed into mistcaller.
For soaking breaths you better make assignments. First one is always active tank (the one who just taunted after a breath) or a melee. Second may be melee as well. Rest should be ranged.
Sometimes you're getting a kite before a breath and even though it's possible to make it back in time, it's safer for other ranged, who's not kiting to go into your void zone.
There's one exception to this – iirc, breath #3 happens right during ranged kite so we soak it with melees. But I know that some guilds soak it with ranged anyways.

Mariners
They're top dps priority, they gain energy very fast here.
Heroism is usually blown on the arrival on the second mariner, more rare on the first one.

Small adds
Don't forget to kill them. Dot them. Try to stun, typhoon, binding shot them and kill on the places where green staff from them won't hurt your kites.
They're not a big nuisance, but should be handled anyway.

Dispels
Are rarer than on phase1, 1 spriest is enough to make all of them. Also require practice and grouping for that MD.


It won't take you too long to accommodate to phase3, but it's every important to reach it almost every time. Focus on your performance on phases 1 and 2 – only that way you can practice phase3, as stupid as it sounds, but it works that way.

This fight is about healers, there's a lot of pressure on them – they have to heal, dispel and kite every fucking sphere. Don't yell on them, encourage them instead, help them with clever usage of your defensive cds.

I hope this wall of text helps someone. You may ask additional questions if I forgot something or messed with an order or magnitude.

[Deleted]

Thank you for this write up.

We'll start it tonight and the detail on combos and timing is particularly helpful

[warbean]

We got it this week after 307 wipes. The above post is extremely helpful and I agree with pretty much everything, other than to say that we found P3 to be as time consuming as P1 to learn.

I also wanted to say we 3 healed due to roster issues so it is viable to do that, with the benefit being that you will be in P3 far less time.

Thank you for this write up.

We'll start it tonight and the detail on combos and timing is particularly helpful

[Deleted]

Hey, really thanks for the post.

I got a question:
We need some adjustment in dps in p2. How do u focus adds? We do a priority on mistcaller > mariner/big> tentacles.
But we have some problem with the second set of tentacles.. we dont kill them before the second "upper" phase.

Some tips for dps players?

[Tanthalas]

Hey, really thanks for the post.

I got a question:
We need some adjustment in dps in p2. How do u focus adds? We do a priority on mistcaller > mariner/big> tentacles.
But we have some problem with the second set of tentacles.. we dont kill them before the second "upper" phase.

Some tips for dps players?

First, make a good transition – we're stopping dps to let Helya make her 4th breath, kill the slimes and force the transition right before the 14th set of tainted sea debuffs. Meanwhile, people are already moving to their dedicated platforms.
That allows us to start dpsing the tentacles asap and at the point mistcaller adds appear they're already at 60-70% of HP.
Then we grip mistcallers to the tentacles and continue cleaving via tentacles mostly. If you don't have grips, you should probably focus more on mistcallers – you want them dead more or less before they finish their third cast.
When mariner and grudger appear we switch to dps them. Basically, only a platform with mariner should do that because he's on timer, but as you need to kill tentacles simultaneously, the other one is forced to do that too.

As for below, you should kill tentacles asap, while giving a little love to a mistcaller and almost completely ignoring small adds and finish them off when you move to your platforms for the next upper phase. Tanks and maybe a mage/hunter/demon hunter are enough to get rid off most of them.

With all that said I would bet on the bad transition the most – force her into second phase when you're comfortable and not the moment your dps allows.