The Terror from Beyond–Terror from beyond operation boss guide

This is the boss strat for The Terror from Beyond, the final boss in SWTOR Terror from Beyond TFB Operation in Patch 1.4. Included are strats for storymode and hardmode.

Health

• Tunneling Tentacle (181k, 8m SM, 261k 8m HM)
• The Terror from Beyond (2.18 mil, 8m SM, 3.1 mil 8m HM, 6.8 mil 16m HM)
• Hypergate Irregularity (9k HP, 8m SM)

Storymode –Phase 1

Phase 1 is the boring phase of the two but easy to master.

Tunnelling Tentacles

You cannot damage the boss at this point but the damage you do to the tentacles will be transferred to the boss. For this reason, it is better to divided the raid into two groups and kill both tentacles individually. While this will take longer than having all the DPS killing one tentacle, it will deal more damage to the boss, resulting a bit shorter phase 1.

One tentacle will spawn on each side, but they seem to alternate in the position where they spawn. There are two possible positions: inside or outside.

On the inside position, the two tentacles are closer together and it is safe for healers and melee DPS to stand behind the tentacle while the tank grabs it on the other side. This allow healer and DPS to avoid most of the acid spit and the slam attack.

On the outside position, the two tentacles are further apart and it is safer for healers and DPS to stand diagonally from the tank, facing the boss. This will avoid most of the spit and slam attacks.

In terms of the Acid Spit, players close to the tentacle receive a buff that decrease their chance of getting the spit. You will assign one player (ranged DPS or healer) on each side with good situational awareness that stands in the back (away from the tentacles) to eat the spit and avoid the slam.

Unstable Larva

When the Tunneling Tentacle reaches 50%, two Unstable Larva will spawn on either side, beaming for the tank. Ideally, you will want the ranged DPS to kill them before they get to the tank and explode for massive amounts of damage.

Birthing

Once the Tunneling Tentacle is dead, the boss will channel Birthing, a 3 second cast. At the end of the cast, a bunch of Birthed Larva will spawn from the boss and headed straight for the shore. Your job here is simple: simply find a gap in the incoming Birthed Larva line and stand there, allowing the Birthed Larva to pass.  If you maintain a good distance away from them, they won’t bother you.

You will repeat the Tunneling Tentacle, Volatile Larva, and Birthing cycle until you get the boss down to ~44% (961 K). Your entire group will be then teleported to phase 2!

Storymode –Phase 2

Range and Positioning.

Range isn’t an issue for healing and attacking the boss. Even if your operation window tell you someone is out of range, you can still target them and heal them.

Proper positioning is crucial here. Generally we have the healers and tanks up top. This allow healers to keep an eye on everything while tanks can leave spit on a platform without hindering the traveling of DPS down below killing the tentacles. You will want a healer and tank pair go left while the other healer and tank pair go right. Tanks will want to grab their own platforms to handle the spit from the boss.

Tank Swap

Terror from Beyond will spit at a tank, forcing that tank to change platforms and then immediately channel a spell called Scream (4 second cast).

At the end of the channel, that tank will receive a debuff that causes them to take increased damage from the boss. The other tank will need to taunt immediately during the channel.

Grasping Tentacles

These tentacles are the things DPS need to kill to damage the boss.Two tentacles will spawn in the following two platforms first. All the DPS should focus burn one tentacle first (move away when the tentacle casts Slam) before moving to the other.

The other location the tentacles will spawn are the two platforms in the back once they are killed in the two front platforms.

Hypergate Irregularity

After killing the two tentacles, all the DPS should spread out as Hypergate Irregularities will spawn on a bunch of platforms. The top ones can be handled by tanks and healers while the bottom ones should be cleaned up by the DPS. They have only 9k HP on storymode.

Furious Tantrum

After killing about 3 set of tentacles and 2 sets of Hypergates, the boss should reach 367k (~16%) and enter a Furious Tantrum.

Doing this stage, he will attack random players with Phasic Spittle, dealing ~11k damage. Tanks will need to taunt him back immediately. It is mostly a burn phase here. Once you get the boss down to 83k (~3%), the fight is over.

Hardmode –Phase 1

8m

16m

Positioning

• Split raid into two functional groups (i.e. tank, healer, 2x DPS on 8m)
• Each group have a ranged DPS standing in the back to eat the acid spit from the tentacles while avoiding Slam from the boss (on 8m, you can have a single ranged DPS eat spit for both groups to minimize the number of players affected by Slam)
• Tanks should tank the tentacles diagonal from the boss while rest of the group stands diagonal from the tank with the tentacle between the boss and the player. . This positioning allow the entire group to avoid Slam and acid spit.

• It may take several attempts for the assigned ranged DPS to get used to the Slam positioning. Generally, if the said DPS position themselves such that the Tunneling Tentacle is between them and the boss, they can avoid most of the slam.

Hypergate Beacon

• New mechanic introduced in hardmode, 1x Hypergate Beacon (on 8m) will spawn shortly after the tunneling tentacles (~60-70% HP of the tentacles) and start pulling a random raid member to them. If they reach a certain number of pulls (around 5), they will instant kill that person, regardless of how far they are from the hypergate/boss.
• DPS should switch from the tentacles and burn down Hypergate Beacon ASAP, it doesn’t have a lot of HP.

• Doesn’t seem to spawn with every tentacle phase as we have killed tentacles without seeing the beacon spawning.

Swirling Orbs

• Spawn around the same time as the Hypergate Beacon. Seem to only get 1 to spawn per pair of tentacles on 8m but 2 spawns on 16m.
• You can either avoid it or have one person grab it. It will deal continuous damage to that person and the tentacle (doesn’t damage rest of the raid).
• The issue with picking up the swirling orb on 8m is that it will deal considerable more damage to one tentacle, causing you dealing more damage to one tentacle than the other and thus dealing less total damage to the boss.

Unstable Larve

• Not a big deal but expect 2x Unstable Larve waves per pair of tentacle compared to storymode since it have considerably more HP.

Hardmode –Phase 2

No matter how much damage you do to the boss in phase 1, he will reset to 50% HP on hardmode.

Platform /Positioning

The first thing your entire raid team need to be clear on is the platform assignment for phase 2.

Tentacles: First pair of Tentacles will be on platforms 11 & 13, second pair, 9 &15, and third pair back to 11 & 13

Tanking: One tank at each side, one tanking from platform 10, the other from platform 14. Tank will need to move to another platform for spit/acid and then move back to eat scream.

Spit Platforms: Tanks will take the spit on platform 9& 15 (and then move to 10, 14 to eat the scream) when tentacles are at platform 11 and 13. Tanks will take the spit on platforms 11 & 13 (and then move to 12 to eat the scream) when tentacles are at platforms 9 & 15. Basically, tanks take the spit on the empty tentacle platforms.

Alternatively, tanks can simply jump to platforms 1 & 8 to eat the spit. .

Anomaly: Anomalies will spawn on all the red platforms (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ) – random outer platforms.

Hypergate Irregularity: Has a chance to spawn on all platforms except tentacle platforms.

Healers: Healers can sit on platforms, 3, 4, 5, or 6. 4 & 5 seems to have less issues with LOS with regards to tank healing and are preferred platfroms.

Quick way to get back to Home: This may or may not work for you but jumping off any platforms may have a chance to bring you right back to the Home platform or it may simply bring you to a nearby platform.

Scream Debuff & Acid/Spit dump

Similar to storymode, TFB will spit at the tank and then follow it with a channeled scream. The tank being spit at will need to move to a clean platform while other tank will need to taunt during the channel. Unlike storymode however, the scream debuff does not wear off by itself. You will need to travel back to the home platform to remove it.

Make sure your DPS are aware of where the spits are placed and do not travel to these platforms

Hypergate Anomaly

Hypergate Anomaly is the new mechanic introduced in hardmode and spawns at 70 and 25% HP of each tentacle. This means that you will get four hypergate anomalies per pair of tentacles. Anomlies have a chance to spawn on any of the “red” platforms in the above picture. .

You can either split DPS on the two tentacles or focus DPS on one of the tentacles and leave the other one alone. Usually one DPS is enough to kill the anomalies that spawn. Anomalies do pulsating damage called Hypergate Instability that deals 1683 damage per second on 8m. If the anomaly spawns on a platform the healer is standing on, he/she should move off to a different platform (i.e. if it spawns on platform 4, move to 3 etc).

Hypergate Irregularity

Once a pair of tentacles are down, all platforms except for the four tentacle platforms have a chance to spawn Hypergate Irregularities. During this period, the boss will channel Hypergate Irregularity for 30s and will not attack.

You have 17 (16 platforms + Home platform) – 4 tentacle platforms = 13 platforms to cover. On 8m you will need to assign healers and tanks to a platform and assign DPS to 2-3 platforms.

Here is an example of platform assignment for my 8m guild. Healers have platform 3, 6. Tanks got platform 16, and 14. Two of the DPS got 2 platforms while the other two got 3 platforms (they co-cover the home platform).

For a 16m raid, you have a much easier assignment as you can pretty much assign a single person to each platform with extras to spare.

Furious Tantrum

Furious Tantrum starts once you have 3 pairs of tentacles down. During this phase, everyone need their own platform as the boss attack damages an entire platform. He will casts Phasic Spittle (hits for 16k) on a random raid member and then switches to someone else. He needs to be taunted by the tanks back and forth (make sure the other tank take a bit of damage before you taunt it back) as he aggro wipes frequently.

While the tanks are juggling the boss’s threat back and forth, all DPS need to pop their adrenals, buffs, etc and max burn. Remember, the boss dies at 3%!