Reply With QuoteHmm... I suppose we could offtank the last drake when the other two are down.Originally Posted by PriestMLH
We found the Time Warden the most brutal hit for hit for sheer melee damage. Might be worth killing him first.
Our guild has found GREAT success in activating the Nether Scion first but killing it last, this allows us to kill the other drakes without to much difficulty - we found the Whelp pack to be the most dangerous to NOT activate as the Raid Damage is HORRIBLE without them up.
Hmm... I suppose we could offtank the last drake when the other two are down.
We found the Time Warden the most brutal hit for hit for sheer melee damage. Might be worth killing him first.
It's a theorycrafting call. You have to weigh reduced time with 150% damage vs more time AND dps with 100% damage. Depending on the comp, you can pretty much always count on being able to leave one of the drakes alone and safely unactivated. So the question becomes do you spend an extra 2 minutes or so on a third drake (or dedicate a tank to kiting him, requiring extra heals) and try to take advantage of the 150% in the time left, or do you use the extra time and the 100% debuff, plus the extra dps from the tank (which can be significant, for example with a bear or DK tank), to burn Halfus. I can't speak for every comp, but in most of the simulations I ran it was almost always better to leave the 3rd drake alone.
What were the parameters of these simulations? I doubt that a single tank can make up for the loss of a 50% damage increase for the raid. If your healers can handle the damage from Halfus + 2 active drakes, they certainly can handle Halfus + 1. (Don't kill the third drake. Release and OT.)
can any1 explain how the tanks deal whit the staks? cz after 10 is really hard to survive and after 15 its imposible even whit big CD's..im sure something mi self and mi team r doing wrong and our problem seems to be tha staks on the tank ..we even try whit 3 tanks (10 man btw) 1 on the first drake and the ather 2 swoping on boss to clear the staks and second drake this seemed to work bettar but still was an wipe fest
anwer pls ty
The entire concept of dealing with the stacking healing reduction debuff, is to avoid it. Simply put, if the boss doesn't hit you, he doesn't apply the debuff. Several methods of dealing with it can be done.
First. Hand of Protection can be used to instantly cleanse all stacks of the debuff on a single target. If you have a Protection Paladin they can use Divine Shield instead and save Hand of Protection for the later or the other tank. So long as you have at least one paladin in the group though you can cleanse it at least once, and ideally you want this at the start of the fight when it most hectic. The longer you can keep the boss on a single target, the more time you have to kill whatever the other tank is tanking before they actually have to start taking the debuff themselves.
Second. In this particular week we don't have to deal with the Shadow Nova, so having interrupts on the boss at all times isn't necessary. This actually makes kiting the boss a viable method of delaying receiving stacks of the debuff. Naturally if you are simply out of range for the boss to hit you, there is no chance for him to possably apply the debuff to you. You can pull him, run all the way to the back wall before he even gets to you. You can charge, intervene, heroic leap away to kite him more. Leap of Faith (lifegrip) and Body and Soul can help kite him more. A hunter can use distracting shot, kite the boss all the way across the room, and hit feign death and let the boss meander all the way back to you. The other tank when it is necessary for them to actually taunt the boss, they can do so from range so the debuff isn't being applied immediately. There are lots of little tricks like this you can employ to simply avoid getting the debuff.
Finally, when everything else is said and done, whichever tank has higher avoidance should be the one tanking the boss at the start. Naturally if you avoid more attacks, you get the debuff stacked slower. So when the boss actually is meleeing them, they are aquiring the debuff slower and can hold the boss for a longer period of time.
The entire key concept to dealing with the stacking healing reduction is to minimize it by avoiding it whenever and however possible. In this week's composition you will not want to let your debuff stack too high simply because the raid wide damage being taken also hits you as well, if you're getting too high on stacks the random raid damage you might take may kill you even if the boss is being actively tanked by the other tank. Keep in mind the debuff lasts 30 seconds so that is 30 seconds where you can't be healed as effectively.
"In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage." /w TankSpot WTB Montage for Raiders.
(Slate Dragon > Time Warden > Whelps)
Just to elaborate on the Quinafoi's comments: Hunter Distracting Shot does not work. I checked our logs to verify our hunter's claim that he is immune.
All other tricks come highly recommended -- Charge/Intervene/Leap, Lifegrip + Zoom Bubble, Hand of Protection when you run out of tricks. Halfus will also get periodically stunned, giving you time to get some distance (for us, it also interrupted a Furious Roar, which was awesome).
We opted to release both drakes right away and pop CDs to kill them ASAP. This worked well for us as the fight gets significantly easier once they are dead. We were able to avoid the entire mortal strike mechanic through kiting until the drakes were down, at which point it becomes a simple tank switch.
Just a fun note, Victory Rush procs off the whelps. It's a ton of healing that probably isn't necessary at the easy stage of the fight (unless your healers are oom).
tnx guys will try again today i think ..do you know iff we can appply on the boss any slow efects?
We usually just do Halfus plus 1, releasing drake 2 when the first one dies (dependent of comp, of course).
A single tank couldn't make up for an extra 50%, but the issue is more about time. Not only are you dumping a couple of million damage into something that you don't need to kill, you're also spending TIME on it. The situation isn't just 150% damage vs 1 extra dps/100% damage, it's 150% damage vs 1 extra dps/100% damage/time spent killing drake.
Of course if you just kite the last drake, the time gets taken out of the equation.
As for the simulations, I ran them based on our raid comp, and now that I think about it the fact that we have a bear tanking the drakes and he flips pretty seamlessly to kitty for the final burn might have effected the outcome, as even in tankitty he's still rocking 14-15k.
We managed to do it with 4 heals, 2 tanks and 4 DPS. DPS pulled their weight big time, with my rogue at the top (DK close behind on single target) except for AOE (I basically was there for single target burning obvously) while the 2 hunters took out the whelps. We did it with 20 seconds left on the enrage timer, and I believe most of our DPS was over-geared. Just wanted to let people know it is possible
Good luck!
EDIT: Also, we pulled, Storm, then Whelps, then Nether. Killed all 3 then moved to Hal.
My guild has done it for the past three weeks in the same way. We release everything, tank everything, and kill things in whatever order we want. Here are a few things that work and don't work for us.
The past few weeks, we've had whelps, and we will for the next few weeks... those actually hurt. So my guild pops CD's and trinkets and shit and burns them down.
Last week we didn't have to kite fireballs, so we just stacked up and accidental cleave damage was fantastic. Once the whelps go down, it's just pick a dragon and kill it. And then the other dragon.
We have a bear tank and a DK tank, so the bear NEVER tanks the whelps, that's just silly.
Last week we 2-healed it for the first time, and prolly will from now on. Resto druid did 15k, and the holy paladin did 12k, over the course of the fight.
Last thing to note, this is primarily doable due to the change with the %damage that Halfus takes. Sure, it's wasted time killing the drakes, but the burn on Halfus is literally about a minute once the drakes are dead.
I don't have logs, but we will this week.
Worse than you.
I am trying to have a solid strategy for tonight (2nd night trying Halfus). We had a few attempts on him last night.
Anyway the Slate/Nether/and whelps are up this week.
We had an incredibly hard time keeping up our tanks when we released the Slate/Nether (keeping whelps in cage). Now the tank was a little under geared but it was still extremely difficult with 3 healers (shammy/pally/disc priest).
We were popping everything from the start and did almost make it through one time out of our 4 attempts.
Would it be wise to release lets say the Slate and have our MT who is on halfus get whelps?
If anybody could shed some light on this, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
release nether + whelps, slate is optional. Kill nether, then bomb the rest of the whelps. If you want to kill slate do so now, otherwise it is probably better to leave it tied up as furious roars are dangerous if tanking a drake.
Thanks man, is it best to have the MT on Halfus tank the adds while everybody else kills slate? After slate is dead burn Halfus while cleave damaging the whelps?
Thanks again for the advice.
Personally I would simply not bother with slate at all, all he does is stun the boss every 40ish seconds. I would simply nuke nether, then kill the remaining adds, then kill the boss.
People often think that Slate is more important than he really is. True Slate gives Halfus the most annoying possible buff, the stacking healing debuff (requiring tank swaps on the boss, when all other combinations do not require tank swaping). However the benefit you receive from releasing Slate is so weak it is never worth it. The stun is random. Whenever Slate Dragon is present, the other two are typically killed and Slate is ignored in normal mode methods, regardless of what the other two are. Everything but Slate Dragon provides a non-random benefit, and therefore is always better than the random benefit.
Slate has the largest impact on overall strategy. However because of that, there is a pattern whenever Slate is present. Whenever Slate is one of the three, kill the other two.
"In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage." /w TankSpot WTB Montage for Raiders.
The stun from Slate is not random. Halfus is afflicted by Paralysis every 35 seconds.
Example here.
So I just started this fight for first time today with some random folks. I had a hard time knowing when to switch off again once I taunted the boss (I was the off-tank on Storm Caller). Unfortunatly after a few wipes they went with finding a new off-tank that knew the fight better. Whats the proper timing for the switch between the Boss and going back to the Storm Caller?
Two things.
One you should have a plan in place before hand how many stacks you swap at, especially at the start of the encounter. Later on it will resolve to something more trivial like simply taunting as your stack falls off (provided you are healed up before hand).
Two communication is important. Simply saying "taunt now" over vent could go a long way.
"In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage." /w TankSpot WTB Montage for Raiders.
Quin is absolutely right: communicate. Basically the other tank needs to set up his drake near you as fast as possible so you don't get too many stacks. After that first taunt, just taunt when your debuff stack drops off.
Only thing I would add is that since you know better than the other tank as to when your debuff drops, you should be saying "taunting now" rather than telling the other guy when to taunt off of you. Then the other guy knows to back off on damage. I also found it helpful to the other tank and healers to update them with the time til the debuff will drop, say at like 10 seconds left, I'd say "taunting in ten".
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