Got Halfus down to 25% this week, however I cannot believe how much damage is going out to our tanks on this fight. I am a holy paladin and usually have little to no trouble healing raid tanks. We had nether, slate, and storm. We pull nether first to slow down the build up of MS. We would love to have 2 drakes up but it seems our tanks get owned in about 3 hits with two drakes up. We grab storm as soon as nether dies. I understand having the MS debuff is pretty nasty and that tanks need to trade taunts. We have been trying for 5 stacks. It almost seems that the drakes hit harder than halfus and having stacks on you while tanking drakes is a pretty dodgy situation. I read on here that MS can be removed with divine shield (I haven't tried this yet). Is this the best strategy? We have 2 warrior tanks with 350 gear and at least 50% block. It seems that more damage should be mitigated/avoided than what is currently happening. I have the tanks working on keeping their cooldowns on rotation (especially at the start of the fight). I know we can do better than this...plz help..
The stacks reduce healing received. I heal this as a Disc priest and I'm on the tanks as they get Halfus since I have Power Word:Shield; while the debuff does decrease healing received, it has no effect my shields.
Yes, the pally can bubble it off, just needs to be quick to get his aggro back by taking off his bubble.
Last edited by Theotherone; 04-07-2011 at 12:09 PM.
If you are getting Halfus to 25%, you are well past the difficult part of the encounter already... unless your DPS is on the wrong target completely.
Avoidance technically does help because it increases the time between stack applications, which is why the Nether Scion's debuff of adding 25% chance to miss is so crucial when Nether Scion and Slate Dragon are both present. If the boss doesn't connect with his swing, the debuff is not applied.
Mitigation helps reduce incoming damage, but it makes no difference if that damage is still greater than the person can be healed through while they have the debuff. If a healer can only heal you for 5k HPS cause of a debuff, if you're taking 10k DPS in damage (even if mitigated down from 13k DPS), it is still more damage than can be healed.
The mortal debuff is a physical debuff so any physical immunity will remove it including Iceblock, Divine Shield, and Hand of Protection. If the tank uses Divine Shield or receives a Hand of Protection from some other paladin, they should cancel it immediately so they can begin tanking again. Many tanks may have macros like this for such an occassion.
If you're swaping every 5 stacks, you're probably swaping too often and not letting it fall off the other tank, resulting in two people being high in stacks and unhealable.Code:/cancelaura Hand of Protection
Again, a key concept of the debuff is if he can't hit you, it isn't applied. Since you aren't releasing Storm right away, you can't interrupt the Shadow Nova even if you wanted to. With this in mind, you can actually extend the duration a single tank holds the boss by kiting him more. Mobility effects such as Intervene and Heroic Leap to get away from the boss can slow the rate of incoming stacks. Additionally you can have your tanks swap by taunting from range so the boss has to run over to the new tank before starting to apply the debuff. Once interrupting the Shadow Nova becomes a priority however, you will not want to be kiting him unless you can have a ranged DPS like an Elemental Shaman reliably interrupting for you.
For my 10 man we have the benefit of a protection paladin and a holy paladin so have the benefit of two stack drops. We have one tank handle the boss to like 10-12 stacks, get a Hand of Protection and start tanking again. By the time he starts building up again we are on the second drake. The other tank takes over on the boss and does similar, tanking relatively high in stacks then sheding them with a Hand of Protection and then tanking the rest of the way until the second drake is dead. Generally speaking in combinations that involve Slate Dragon we don't bother killing him at all so at this point it is just trading back and forth the boss whenever your debuffs fall off.
Last edited by Quinafoi; 04-07-2011 at 12:22 PM.
"In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage." /w TankSpot WTB Montage for Raiders.
We are pulling halfus from a distance by misdirecting towards the tank to reduce incoming MS debuff stacks. I am a little worried about the loss of aggro on tank with bubble (instant death to our melee interrupts). I think the idea about stacks not falling off because we are only going for 5 is RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Perhaps 7-10 stacks is the solution. Kiting halfus during nether and making sure we let stacks fall off has to be the answer. Thank you for your helpful replies.
Why do you have interrupters on the boss if you aren't releasing Storm at the start? Until you can interrupt something, there is no reason to dedicate someone to a task that can't possably be done. After the first drake is dead there should be a significant threat lead for both tanks as they have taunted the boss.
The other tank taunts first, Hand of Protection the prior tank while the boss is meandering his way over to the other tank and hit the cancelaura macro and taunt back. Preferably before the other tank takes any debuff stacks, but if he gets one or two cause he was tanking Halfus and a drake for a second or two it ins't the end of the world cause they should fall off before he needs to taunt again.
Last edited by Quinafoi; 04-07-2011 at 12:32 PM.
"In anything, if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage." /w TankSpot WTB Montage for Raiders.
Yeah having the cancelaura macro is a great idea...i remember doing this back in wrath. I give a shot for sure. You are right about the melee. We have a rogue who is going to be on the drake and not halfus until the second drake is up so...not too much of risk there. Just working on the timing with the tank who is bubbled....and voila. Although there is 5 min cooldown on HoP. It certainly would be nice to have another paladin to work with on this to trade CD's with. But all in all I think this is enough to push past that 25% marker...anything to help save healer mana..
One tip, pop hero at the start, the faster more drakes die, the easier the fight becomes. once 2 drakes are down the only way you should wipe is to a tank death from furious roar or healer mana
we usually swop at 7-8 stacks. personally we just put our strongest tank on the drakes and tank two off the bat. yea it can be touch and go, but focusing healers on that tank, plus burning down with a lust and popping all CDs, can see you through. once one drake is done, its really simple. burn other one down and then go to town on halfus.....
Release 2 drakes at once or 3. On 10 stacks palla should use HoP on MT, after this and cancel aura your MT should use trinkets/skills with avo buffs.
This is part of HC tactic. If you wanna do this at easy mode use disco/smite priest and done. Halfus it isn't hard boss.
Tank should swap at 6 stack on N and 4 stack on HC. These dragon should die on AoE damage. If any of your tank has trinket from USE, then he must use it!
Halfus has been changed a long time ago, he doesn't has a plus damage modifier until a drake dies (instead of released like before).Originally Posted by Matrox
Normalmode:
- you'll always want to release Stormrider so you can kick the Nova.
- I'd release Netherscion over Timewarden (especially if you happen to have no paladin for hand of protection in your raid). If you time your cooldowns (avoidance ones first and shieldwall later on with 6+ stacks) you should be able to survive for quite some time. He really doesn't hit that hard after the drake being released (-25% attackspeed, hit, damage).
- if you got hero burn it 10s into the fight after everything is positioned and focus on a drake.
- bombing whelps becomes way easier if you have a mage and some drakes are already dead (Ignite spreading), literally they die instantly.
The tanks should swap when their debuff fell off, that's every 30s.
This weeks comp (Nether/Slate/Storm) is not too difficult with the right strategy and makeup. Ive done it twice this week on my prot pally and prot warrior. If you use Divine Shield (the 100% bubble for 8s) you do not have to cancel the aura. Just taunt. HoP on the other hand has to be canceled. Use those 6-7 seconds wisely to heal the group back up because hes not stacking the debuff up, and the tank isnt taking any damage. I tend to like keeping Halfus about 15 yards or more away from the group so when you bubble, you have time to retaunt without him making someone go splat.
First group, we had 3 Prot Pallys. 2 are badly geared and our MT is very geared. We put him on Halfus. At 15 stacks, he bubbles and immediately taunts. Myself and the other prot pally were going back and forth on Nether whenever we ran out of cooldowns. We just ate the shadow novas. Nether has to be dead before the stacks reapply on the first tank.
Last night, we ran with a prot pally and a very geared prot warrior (me.) For us to 2 tank it, I stood with nether and picked him up and the hunter MD'd storm to me. The way the mechanics work, nether has to die first. His buff on the boss fades when he dies. Storm makes the boss's shadow nova interruptable by just being released. The pally interrupted the best he could, but once nether was dead the fight was faceroll. Finish off the drakes and burn him down.
What does badly geared mean? Itemlevel 312? Please don't eat the shadow nova, release both Storm and Nether so your heals won't be interrupted any longer. This shifts increased raid damage taken (40k dmg/person every 12s - that's 3.333 dps per person or 33.333 rpds) and decreased raid damage dealt to stable raid dps and increased tank damage taken (40k/swing at most). Two-tank him, pop lust and other dps cooldowns/potions at the start and zerg either storm or nether down ASAP.
It doesn't matter which one, the debuff on Halfus is applyied on release. This has changed month ago to trivialise the fight and make it beatable for 10 mans without stacking disc priests or tanks on heroic mode.
The "geared" tank should always take the drakes - they are hitting way harder. Give Halfus tank a hand of protection/hand of freedom combo (cancelaura works well, too) so he can tank Halfus for the first minute. During this time you should be capable (with and without lust) to kill the first drake. After that it's a cakewalk, just top the raid/tanks before roar.
If you tanks die at the below 50% phase , all you have to do is rotate CDs like Pain Suppression/Shield-Wall and so on each roar for the Offtanks that are tanking the remaining drakes.
The Halfus tank does not take any damage exept the 10-20k roar ticks so he doesnt need anything wishlist the the boss is casting roar he doesnt mele but the other drakes do and your healers being stunned does not help.
That's why they changed the encounter. Either kill the drake and get another +100% damage bonus on Halfus or don't bother with releasing them at all. This way you don't have to worry about tank death during roar.
Klausi is right, it makes no sense whatsoever not to kill those drakes and get the modifier on Halfus. It might seem like its backwards but Halfus's health flies down with those damage modifiers on him.
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I believe last week (for slate, nether, storm) our prot pally said he waited til 19 stacks of MS before bubbling them off, but that was with all cd's rotated and PS. We also kill all 3 drakes, and don't really see a reason not to since after the 3 drake dies only 1 tank will be taking any dmg.
As for the cancel aura macro I would think a macro like:
/cancelaura Hand of protection
/cast (your taunt)
should work as long as the the HoP doesn't cause them to untarget. Sorry don't have a pally > lvl 7
About 340 average level. The geared tank is about 353 level or so.
Maybe heroic is different, but regular, I noticed it was the opposite as youve mentioned. Nether's speed and AP buff never came off until he was dead.
[21:13:17.969] Nether Scion casts Nether Blindness
[21:13:19.731] Halfus Wyrmbreaker afflicted by Nether Blindness from Nether Scion
[21:15:24.319] Nether Scion dies.
Or just check any recent log on WoL, it's casted on release.
The buffs are never removed, Halfus just gains a debuff completely separate from the buffs he has when each drake is released.
I guess I am wrong then. Which is odd because I could have sworn he was completely decimating my war tank until nether died, then damage reduced.
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