Heroic Halfus Wyrmbreaker

Here's a video of how my guild did it in 10 man, on our first time doing it- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaQLkZSD1nw

The learning process and the eventual kill took us 12 wipes before the kill, for a total of about an hour and a half learning it and perfecting the strat.

We started the pull with a hunter misdirect to our warrior tank across the room, giving travel time to reduce applications of the healing debuff. Our Paladin tank released storm, our rogue released whelps and tricks'd them to the pally tank. Passive AoE and Rogue FoK killed the whelps while the other dps (Marks Hunter, Shadow Priest, Fire Mage) killed Storm. Meanwhile, our DK picked up nether. After Whelps and Storm died, dps switched to nether, and slate was released. On our first close attempt, we tried to kill slate, but wound up going over the enrage timer for a 13% wipe. We decided to leave slate up, and easily killed halfus in just over 5 minutes total.

Yes, there is a significant amount of tank swapping, and to be frank, I barely payed attention to it since none of it concerned me (as a huntard dps). Essentially that's the kill order, and make sure to move out of fire. Seriously. And if its of any consequence, our combines raid comp was Blood DK, Prot Warrior, Prot Paladin, Marks Hunter, Shadow Priest, Fire mage, Assassination Rogue, Two Resto Druids, and last but not least, a Disc Priest.

Here's a log that also confirms identical damage from the drakes, and even the whelps. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=6955&e=7273

Hope this helps some of you!

A strategy we've begun to apply is after your first tank clears his initial stacks let him continue to tank Halfus right up until he dies, if SS'd he can instantly rez himself or just be quick to brez him while your second tank takes halfus, this way you aren't stuck with an extremely gimped tank for that 30 seconds which tends to be one of the most healing intensive parts. Saves early mana costs and if your tank can live up until aroun 18 stacks of the debuff before dying you just bought an extra 10-15 seconds of mortal strike being applied to any other tanks. It's really nice to not have any more then 1 tank with the debuff for the first 1:30-2 minutes.

We got this down in H 10m last week after nearly 20 wipes but an issue I was having as principle interrupter was that my tank kept moving the boss all around the room during the fight. Evidently this is to avoid fireballs but I'm wondering if it is really necessary given it is just as easy (easier?) to avoid that damage by moving around the boss whilst still keeping the boss in one place. The trouble is twofold (1) if my tank moves the boss at the very instant I am required to interrupt and I'm OOR he may get a nova off - though this only happened a few times it was annoying and (2) DPS is generally lower on a moving target when you're melee. Personally I found it harder to avoid the fire when trying to keep up with a moving target because I knew that if I ran around stuff at a point when I needed to be interrupting it would be bad. Much prefer it if movement was not necessary.

So - does anyone have a view as to whether it is important to move the boss around in this fight or not? What are the benefits of doing so (if any)? Would be good to know in advance of raiding tomorrow so that I can have an informed discussion of this.

The boss shouldn't be moving that much other than its own movement when retargeting after a taunt, or when the MT is pulling him into the whelp/drake pile. You can usually dodge the fireballs by moving to one side.

I have made a video which demonstrates my guilds 10 man heroic strategy for this fight which is up to date.
We use the standard raid setup, 2 tanks and 3 healers.

If you are curious how we did it heres the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVXOfEXEMlQ

We killed him yesterday for our first raid on him. We killed him on the last try.
As stated above, the damage input is insane in the beginning of the fight and cooldowns are huge help.

We had two prot warriors and a DK.
The DK freed whelps and Storm Rider, whereas one prot warrior freed the Nether Scion, and the other (me) pulled Halfus.
We switched at roughly 4 debuffs stacks, but you must be vigilant because sometimes your stacks get from 2 to 8 in a second.
We killed the whelps firts, then the Nether Scion, then we freed the Time Warden, killed the Storm Rider, and offtanked the time warden until halfus's death.
Vocal communication is essential for a good tank rotation. Bring 3 tanks and the fight will be more easier, provided you bring good healers too.

Hi guys,

After reading all of the other guild's tact, I feel obligated to also post out experience in downing Halfus, I won't say it's perfect but it works for us.

Raid setup:
Tanks: DK, Druid, Paladin
Healers: Holy priest, 2 Holy paladins
DPS: Arms Warrior, Ele Shaman, SP, Fire Mage

tactics for us was that we released ALL dragons at the start, enabling all debuffs on Halfus (and thus making the fight manageable from a healing perspective). Also: having the stun & scion active makes MS-debuff on tank very doable. On top of that we had the paladin tank Halfus (solemnly), and he could use Divine shield AND BOP on himself. A few mins into the fight I (Holy Paladin) would use BOP again on him. Only after that (well 4 mins into the fight) did we need to switch tank on Halfus. By that time 3 drakes were dead, and we chose only to kill three and zerg halfus. Druid would tank 2 drakes, DK tanks 2 drakes and whelps. You would not want an extra drake on Pally tank, due to casting DS / BOP and losing aggro (one target is very doable).

Note on healing: pop CD's directly, and go ballistic, regen mana after welps & first drake is dead. You might wanna ask for innervate / hymn / totem.

Although we also tried killing 4 drakes, it only took us to 13/14% (a few times). Prio are the welps, then other two drakes are irrelevant as to which you kill.

We also used Heroism in 2nd phase, instead of phase 1. This slows down the killing process, but the killing on halfus in P2 is like almost instant (i know, exaggerating, but VERY fast). Also benefit of Heroism in P2 is having to deal with lesser raid stuns due to Furious Roar. note on that: Human paladins can break that twice: once with divine shield, and once with their racial (although the last one will you get stunned again), and as a pally you can also BOP someone just before (pref a healer or tank). Warriors can use beserker rage (!?!). Mages can blink.

Ow and during the fight we have our Warrior on Halfus as a dedicated interrupter, just to be safe.

All and all a very doable fight for well geared guild!

Gr!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grakzul Slaughtbringer

We killed him yesterday for our first raid on him. We killed him on the last try.

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Much more settling to know you didnt keep attempting to kill him after you killed him. :)

:p

Apologies if this question has already been answered, but I couldn't find a search within thread function (new to the forums for TankSpot).

In the original guide it was stated that Archangel was a loss of HPS; I'm wondering how that's true? If you're already speccing into Atonement and Smiting/Holy Firing, I don't see how 5% mana return and 15% healing buff w/ 50% uptime (that affects your Atonement heals) is a loss of HPS. Just wondering what process makes it a loss?

edit: found the search within thread function, didn't find an answer though :(