High Botanist Tel'arn

[Zlinka]

The Botanist is a 3-phase encounter in the Nighthold.  It starts as a single-target fight with light adds, but progresses to a council-style fight with multiple bosses as the encounter proceeds.  Most of the fight involves zone control and management.

PHASE ONE

In Phase One we'll face the Botanist as a single form.

* Recursive Strikes: anti-tank attack, stacking debuff.  Tanks swap at 7+ stacks.
* Parasitic Fetter:  root + DoT attack.  Targets a random player and roots them in place.  Can be dispelled.  When dispelled, it spawns:
* Parasitic Lasher:  add that fixates a random player.  If it catches the target, it will root the target with Parasitic Fetter.  They can be stunned, slowed, and rooted.  The adds grow in size and speed due to Rampant Growth, if this reaches 5 stacks they will become immune to CC. 
* Solar Collapse: Spawns 12 points of energy in a circle.  These will collapse onto the center point.  Anyone hit by the circles will take damage.
* Controlled Chaos:  Targets a random player and creates a big Arcane zone on the ground.  After a few seconds it will explode, damaging anyone standing in it.  It will then double in size, explode, and and double again before exploding a final time.

Strategy:
* Tanks move the boss to the center of the room.  Ranged and healers spread out around the boss to provide lots of space for the mechanics.
* Tanks swap at 7+ stacks of Recursive Strikes.
* If a melee player is targeted by Solar Collapse (the imploding orbs) or Controlled Chaos (growing Arcane zone), tanks and melee should reposition quickly to get out of the effect.  Bring the boss back to the center after it's safe.
* If ranged or a healer is targeted, get out of the effects.
* Ranged players move away from rooted players so the add that spawns doesn't root them right away.  As soon as the fetter is dispelled, CC and kill the Parasite Lashers before they become immune.  Killing the adds is the TOP PRIORITY for ranged during all phases.

PHASE TWO: 75% health

High Botanist Tel'arn will SPLIT into two forms:  High Botanist Tel'arn and Solarist Tel'arn.  They share a health pool.  All the mechanics of Phase One persist, and we also get new abilities from the Solarist:

* Flare:  light fire damage to the tank and all players within 4 yards.
* Summon Plasma Spheres:  Occurs about once per minute.  Spawns 3 Plasma Spheres in an equilateral triangle in the center of the room.  Each orb is slowly dying.  When they die, they release a Plasma Explosion which deals damage and increases the damage from subsequent explosions for 5 seconds.  This means they should not be allowed to die within 5 seconds of each other.

Strategy:
* Identical positioning to Phase One.  Keep the bosses stacked so we can cleave them.
* To handle the plasma spheres, we must make sure they don't die within 5 seconds of each other.  We will single-target down one sphere as fast as possible.  Then we'll do the second sphere, but the second one must not die within 5 seconds of the first one or we'll still have the debuff from #1.  Once the second one is dead we can allow the final sphere to decay on its own.

PHASE THREE:  50% health

High Botanist Tel'arn will split into an Arcanist and a Naturalist.  The Solarist remains, for a total of three bosses.  All bosses share health.  All the mechanics of Phases One and Two will be present, plus several new abilities.

* Toxic Spores (Naturalist):  will spawn through the end of the fight.  Applies a DoT if you touch one.
* Grace of Nature (Naturalist):  Creates a zone that HEALS him and his allies if they stand in it.
* Call of Night (Archaist):  Marks several players with a debuff that inflicts continuous raid-wide damage as long as they are NOT within 5 yards of a player WITHOUT the debuff.  The damage is also triggered if they come within 5 yards of another player afflicted with Call of Night.

Strategy:
* We'll Bloodlust here.
* Same positioning.  Tanks keep all 3 bosses stacked.
* Don't walk into a spore.
* If you get the Call of Night debuff FIND AN UNMARKED PLAYER and stand within 5 yards.  Stay together, the debuff lasts 45 seconds.  Make sure you are not near any other marked players.
* Ranged continue to prioritize Parasitic Lashers

[Zlinka]

Here's the Line of Sight two-minute guide.  Please watch this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPcrb1uDT4

This is a three-phase encounter.  Tel'arn will split into different images of himself for each of the phases.
Phase One: the botanist
Phase Two: the botanist and the solarist
Phase Three: solarist, naturalist, and arcanist.  

He'll continue to cast all his original abilities throughout the fight and will acquire new ones in each phase.

Positioning: Tank Tel'arn in the center of the room.  Taunt when the debuff (Recursive Strikes) reaches 7+ stacks.  Then the off-tank should taunt when his stacks fall off.  Melee will stand behind the boss.  Ranged should split into about three groups spaced evenly around the platform.

We have two ground effects that need to be avoided:

Solar Collapse is a set of yellow swirls targeted on a player that will slowly collapse toward the center of the circle.  Everyone move out of this before you get trapped.

Controlled Chaos is a purple circle that will get progressively larger with each of the three bursts.  Move out of this.

If the ranged is split up into three groups, only one group should have to move for either ability.  If melee is targeted, just move out of the effect, then move back to the center.

Root + add:

Parasitic Fetter will root a player in place.  When dispelled, a plant will spawn, and it will fixate on someone.  Stun and kill the plant before it reaches its target, otherwise it will root THAT player and the process will start over.

At 75% the first split will occur, and the botanist will create a solar image of himself -- Solarist Tel'arn.  He'll retain all his abilities, so continue with the taunt swap, handling the roots and the plants, and getting out of the yellow circles and the growing purple void zones.

The tank on the Solarist will now be pulsing with splash damage, so the tanks should stand 4 yards apart.

Three plasma orbs (they look like fiery balls) will spawn at fixed locations around the room.  These orbs will lose their health automatically.  When they die they do raid-wide damage PLUS they apply a 5-second debuff that DOUBLES the damage from the next explosion.  We need to make sure they die at different times.  We'll focus one down quickly, kill the second one after the 5-second debuff falls off, and leave the third one to die on its own.

At 50% Tel'arn will split again.  There will now be three images:  The Solarist, the Naturalist, and the Arcanist.  

Tanks keep swapping while remaining 4 yards apart.  Move quickly out of the green healing pools that spawn under the bosses.  Try to remain near the center of the circle to limit the movement of the other groups.  

Green, spiky spores will begin to form around the encounter area.  These just float around.  They'll apply a DoT to anyone that runs into them.  Classes with immunities can clear the area if there get to be too many.

Two players will be debuffed with Call of the Night.  This will look like a purple electrical aura around those two players.  The aura will do raid-wide damage unless the players are standing (a) at least 5 yards apart from each other AND (b) within 5 yards of a non-debuffed player.
--> if you get debuffed, stay away from the other debuffed player and hug a non-debuffed one.  This will limit the damage to just those two pairs of people.

IN SUM:

* Tanks taunt when the debuff falls off.
* Tanks stand 4+ yards apart in phases 2 and 3
* Ranged stand in three groups evenly spaced around the platform
* Avoid the shrinking circles of yellow swirls
* Avoid the growing purple void zones
* Dispell the roots and kill the plant adds quickly
* In Phase 2, kill two of the three orbs at different times, and let the third die on its own.
* In Phase 3, tanks move the bosses out of the green healing pools
* Avoid the spores, players with immunities can pop them.
* If you get Call of the Night (looks like a purple electrical aura) stay away from the other purple-aura player and hug someone who doesn't have it.

[Zlinka]

We'll be hitting the Botanist first thing tonight (2/9) so please take a look at the Line of Sight video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPcrb1uDT4

-Z