Halfus 10man Normal

[Hintonita]

Hiya,

So my tiny guild decided to give this a go today after watching three different videos and needing to pug 60% of the raid...it was interesting

Basically I'm just wondering if this strategy is ok:

Step 1: Pull Drake and Halfus
Step 2: Nuke down Drake and tanks swap on Halfus every 5-6 stacks of debuff
Step 3: Once drake down, release whelps and pull Boss to them for aoe
Step 4: Nuke Halfus

Things that weren't consistent in the videos we watched were:
1. some people pulled two drakes. Is this necessary?
2. can the Halfus debuff be dispelled? 5-6 stacks didnt seem to be enough for them to disappear before retaunting
3. Healers. Some took 2, some took 3. Is either ok or is three best for new raiders?

I know the drakes have different abilities, we had slate and time warden but only pulled slate. Initially we tried pulling time warden but it seemed to go better with slate.

Any tips/glaringly obvious things we screwed up on? I like to keep things as simple as possible if I can.

[Herbnosis]

Some things depend on what works best for you. For instance, when my raid was doing normal Halfus we needed Time Warden out ASAP because the tanks were doing fine but the raid was taking too much damage.

Generally speaking, Slate can be ignored. Pulling two drakes is usually best but not always necessary, depending on the drakes. For my group, again, it was easier to have the tanks take the damage from multiple drakes than to have the raid taking the damage.

If you're pugging 60% of the raid, bring three healers. Three healers will be best until you get more experience or higher gear levels.

The Halfus debuff can be dispelled by paladin abilities but it will wipe threat on that tank, so your paladin and tank will need to coordinate so the tank can retaunt right away.

[Hintonita]

ah so the drakes do the damage even if they aren't engaged and the benfit of engaging both is obviously to eliminate the damage from both?

thanks for the super swift reply!

[Rudolpho]

Different drakes give halfus different abilities. He gains these abilities if they are active, even if you don't break them out.

Slate gives him mortal strike.
Time gives him fireballs
Whelps give him the momma dragon behind doing breath
Nether gives him double attack speed
Storm gives him an interruptable AOE knockback.

If you let the drake out of the chains, you gain benefits for your raid.

Letting Slate out will stun halfus from time to time (which will often let mortal strike wear off a tank).
Letting Time out will slow the fireballs down by 300% (I think), and lets you move out of them before they hit the ground.
Letting Whelps out cut the AOE breath's damage in half.
Letting Nether out gives him a high miss chance (think its like 30% miss chance).
Letting Storm out will slow his nova cast so that its interruptable without being psychic.

Also, each drake (or the whelps together) will increase the damage you do to halfus by 100% when they die. You gain their other benefit the second you let them out.

So, actually, you will usually kill Halfus himself faster by letting out another drake and burning it down than letting one drake out and keeping one chained. Also, the added benefit (being able to dodge fireballs in the case of Time) is very helpful for healers. I believe the slowed movespeed of the fireballs actually causes less fireballs to hit the raid (as the amount in the air at any time is limited), so even if people suck at dodging them it will reduce raid damage.

[Hintonita]

nice one, we had a bit of a recruitment drive yesterday so we don't pug 60% of the raid. Hopefully it wont be long before we're cutting our teeth in cata raiding at the right gear level....the race is on pre 4.2

Thanks for the advice!