[10] Halfus normal

[yappo]

Could someone give me a heads-up on this one. Spent four hours wiping horribly and efficiently (no drama, just reform, pull, wipe, reform, pull wipe, reform, repair, pull wipe...) in a fight that's rated as laughingly easy.

3 healers (12, 6, 7 hps), 5 dps (average 13k dps) and two tanks (ilevel 348 and 355). We're doing something horribly wrong rather than lacking the tools for this.

In our case we got Slate, Time and whelps. I pull boss, open cage, AoE like there's no tomorrow. Other tank activates Time and dps starts nuking Time. Tank swap on eight stacks. At second swap Time dies and I die. Every damn try.

[fuzzygeek]

Dealing with the mortal strike can be tough the first time around. We went in with an undergeared alt group and had a couple problems.

The solution was this: whomever has the mortal strike debuff shouldn't be tanking anything. If a tank has 8+ stacks and a dragon, they're in trouble.

Depending on your DPS you can also just release one dragon at a time. ISTR the enrage timer being fairly liberal, and with Slate as one of the dragons, Halfus will still get stunned after he hits his enrage timer, so you have more time to DPS him down. Our very first kill back in December took 6:24 or something like that.

[Vort]

What Fuzzygeek said.

You're going to want to swap before 8 stacks if at all possible, I think 4-6 is optimal and with slate released it shouldn't be too much of a problem. With time and whelps up, nobody should be taking much damage other than the tanks. Just make sure you rotate halfus as much as you can, once you get to 4-6 stacks have him taunted off you and as soon as yours reset grab him back.

What's the class makeup of the raid? Running with any paladins? A hand of protection combined with a /cancelaura macro on the tanks is massively beneficial since it lets you not only reset the stacks but gives you breathing room to dish out some more damage without swapping. This allows you to get situated into a nice rotation for the encounter.

[cerwillis]

We got it the first time this week (2 shot on our 2nd night of trying seriously), and we had the 2 on the left and the whelps. I tanked only Halfus to 10 stacks, bubbled/canceled, and then called for a swap at 5. The other pally had tanked the slate drake alone, and it died as we swapped. I picked up the 2nd drake and killed it, the other tank didn't have to bubble, as the stack falls off naturally when he gets stunned. We then switched to the boss and killed him, ignoring the whelps. I hope this is helpful.

[Vort]

We got it the first time this week (2 shot on our 2nd night of trying seriously), and we had the 2 on the left and the whelps. I tanked only Halfus to 10 stacks, bubbled/canceled, and then called for a swap at 5. The other pally had tanked the slate drake alone, and it died as we swapped. I picked up the 2nd drake and killed it, the other tank didn't have to bubble, as the stack falls off naturally when he gets stunned. We then switched to the boss and killed him, ignoring the whelps. I hope this is helpful.

Stacks falling off require a pretty decent level of luck. If by "2 on the left" you mean the Nether and Slate, then it's entirely possible that the stacks fall off during the stun but keep in mind this isn't 'intended'. The mortal strike debuff is a regular swing that he has, the Nether Scion debuff applies a 25% increased miss chance on his swings. This means you have not only your dodge + parry + 5% miss to avoid the incoming stack, but you also have an additional 25%. Let's say you run with 12% dodge 12% parry and 5% from miss. You've got a (not going to go into boss levels etc, just sticking with base numbers for the concept) 29% chance to not have the debuff reapplied each time he uses the attack. With the Nether Scion released this chance increases to 54%, so if you get lucky and a string of misses/parries/dodges happen just before a stun then the stacks will indeed reset. It is worth noting to not rely on this because of the large RNG factor adding to it.

[Fetzie]

don't forget that you can use agility potions to boost your dodge chance for the first few seconds of the fight when he doesn't have the attack speed slow or miss chance.

[PsiVen]

I pull boss, open cage, AoE like there's no tomorrow. Other tank activates Time and dps starts nuking Time.

This sounds somewhat like you mean that these things are happening in sequentially, but you should be releasing both Time and whelps immediately on the pull. Raid damage is substantially higher with either of these still sleeping.

If you mean these do get released on the pull but DPS kills Time first, I would generally recommend killing the whelps first as they die faster as long as your raid isn't especially AoE-weak. Also remember that it's a common mistake to assume Halfus deals more damage than the drakes, but actually the drakes are more dangerous. If you get Halfus taunted off you, don't be taunting a drake in return unless they were tanking two before they picked up the boss. That will make the tank swap actually increase your damage intake.

Tank swap on eight stacks.

Eight stacks is generally the level where I will be popping emergency cooldowns, preferably bubbling or BoPing to reset the stacks. It should never get this high, if you are swapping when debuffs expire it should only reach 8 very rarely. Try to make the first swap at 5 stacks; assuming you're a paladin tank, you have the abilities to immune away your own stacks and the other tank's, so use them as needed.


Remember that efficient wiping isn't just running back to buff up fast, it's talking to people and trying to figure out what's causing deaths. I'm guessing the healers pulling 6-7k HPS are the tank healers and if you asked them, they'd say the MS effect being way too high is what's killing you.

[Chicken]

The whelps are more dangerous as well than people tend to give them credit for, each individual whelp hits for about a sixth of the damage a drake does, but there's 8 whelps in total. Whelp damage is more consistent than drake damage as well.

[fuzzygeek]

This sounds somewhat like you mean that these things are happening in sequentially, but you should be releasing both Time and whelps immediately on the pull. Raid damage is substantially higher with either of these still sleeping.

PsiVen brings up a good point for future weeks: some of the drakes are kind of non-negotiable. Storm (makes shadow nova interruptable), Time (makes fireballs dodgeable) and Nether (reduces Halfus' damage and attack speed) are our Big Three. Whelps (reducing damage from the Behemoth) is big, but in our experience not as important as the others since we can raid CD the Behemoth's damage.

Generally our order of priority would go:
Storm Rider
Time Warden
Nether Scion
Whelps
Slate Dragon

What order you release dragons and how many you release at once will depend on what's up and your raid makeup. It will take some time to figure out what is optimal for you and your raid group.

[Chicken]

If you have whelps and warden it is really a function of how much AoE damage you can bring. If your raid is good for burst AoE damage than whelps first works well; you'll have a short bit of time where people can't dodge fireballs but you'll take much less AoE damage overall that way. If you don't have good AoE though, the whelps are the least needed. On normal Scorching Breath doesn't do enough damage even without whelps to outright kill anyone who isn't a tank as long as the interrupting is good and the fireballs are being dodged properly.

[Dane]

My guild just faced and killed this boss for the first time this week. (I know we're slow...just barely recruited the comp to raid, and we've focused on BWD thus far.)

We got Storm, Slate, Whelps. That's one of the nastier combos, if I'm comprehending correctly...plus we were learning the fight.

After a few false starts, here's how we got it. I grabbed Halfus, and our Warrior tank grabbed Storm, and immediately released the whelps. Whelps were AoE'd down, then Storm was focus fired. Since Storm was out, Shadow Nova was interruptable, and was my responsibility (yay rebuke baseline!) Near the start, our Druid healer popped Tree to assist with healing, and I went all the way to 15 stacks, bubbled, and kept on Halfus until Storm was down, at which point, we started switching like normal. We never bothered with Slate. I have a parse in the unlikely event anyone is curious.

[yappo]

When we got it down we left the whelps in the cage.

Co-tank grabbed Halfus, I grabbed Time and a hunter released Scion and immediately MD:d to me. We had the raid going ballistic on Time while we tank-swapped with one tank on both dragons at all times (due to "smarter" taunts I always initiated taunts to make sure both dragons dropped from my co-tank before he had Halfus wandering over to him).

In difference from given advice we actually killed the second dragon before my co-tank grabbed Halfus and I sauntered over to the cage and released the whelps. When Halfus went down three of the whelps where still alive.

[DexterBelgium]

When we got it down we left the whelps in the cage.

Co-tank grabbed Halfus, I grabbed Time and a hunter released Scion and immediately MD:d to me. We had the raid going ballistic on Time while we tank-swapped with one tank on both dragons at all times (due to "smarter" taunts I always initiated taunts to make sure both dragons dropped from my co-tank before he had Halfus wandering over to him).

In difference from given advice we actually killed the second dragon before my co-tank grabbed Halfus and I sauntered over to the cage and released the whelps. When Halfus went down three of the whelps where still alive.

Preparing to do it tonight for my first time, and I was wondering: with that drake combo (and so no mortal strike), should you even tank swap? There's no reason to, is there?

My game plan for tonight would be: grap whelps and time (to alleviate raidwide damage as much as possible), AoE whelps down first, grab nether. Is that a somewhat solid plan, or am I bonkers? Thing is, the debuff applied to the boss by the Nether Scion seems to be the least potent in terms of "alleviating" the fight (as long as the Halfustankhealer can keep him up).

[lythac]

My game plan for tonight would be: grap whelps and time (to alleviate raidwide damage as much as possible), AoE whelps down first, grab nether. Is that a somewhat solid plan, or am I bonkers? Thing is, the debuff applied to the boss by the Nether Scion seems to be the least potent in terms of "alleviating" the fight (as long as the Halfustankhealer can keep him up).

What we did yesterday was -

Tank 1, Time (1) > NS (3)
Tank 2, Whelps (2) + Halfus (4)

Not sure if you are saying for one tank to have both whelps and time and the other to have Halfus? Whatever it is, whoever takes Halfus should take the whelps. My concern with AoEing the whelps down first would be having to wait for enough threat as you would be using Heroism and players using personal CDs. Much easier to open up on the Time first and have player (tank) splash AoE hitting the whelps.

[yappo]

Our main reason (incorrect as the person was actually healing on an alt during the kill) to leave the whelps was that the player (on his main) does between 50 and 60 k dps AoE (demo lock). Whelps are all over the place after each taunt-swap.

Now, get me right, we LIKE him doing insane AoE damage, but controlling Halfus and two drakes is simply a lot easier for our scrappy bunch than handling Halfus, one drake and eight whelps.

With clear voice commands and RD, swapping drakes for Halfus becomes a joke.