Halfus Wyrmbreaker

Halfus is the first boss in the instance "Bastion of twilight"

When we enter Halfus room, we are able to see 5 dragons. 2 of those dragons will be will be lying on the ground at a quarter life with the debuff Unresponsive on them while the remaining 3 will be standing and at full life. The 3 standing drakes are the ones that will determine which abilities Halfus and the Proto-Behemoth will have for that raid week (soft resets do not change which 3 you get) and will change only after the resets on Tuesdays.

The so called "Hardest part" of the boss will be doing the right combination of dragons, since they all affect halfus and the proto-behemoth in different ways.

All of the dragons, give 2 buffs.

- 1 that helps Halfus
- 1 that helps the raid

I will now tell you the abilities of each dragon and what they do. (copy pasted from wowiki)

Storm Rider

Shadow Wrapped—[0.25sec Cast] Halfus is enveloped in darkness, allowing the use of Shadow Nova.
Cyclone Winds— Slows the cast speed of Shadow Nova by 500% (to 1.50 seconds) and makes it easier (i.e. possible) to interrupt.


The Time Warden

Dancing Flames— Time warps and fire burns around the Proto-Behemoth, empowering him and allowing him to cast Fireball Barrage.
Time Dilation—Further warps the flow of time around the target, slowing the move speed of the Fireball Barrage to allow the raid to move out of the impact locations (signified by the mini-hellfire effects on the ground).


The Slate Dragon

Malevolent Strikes—Halfus' regular melee attacks wound the target, reducing the effectiveness of any healing on it. Stacks.
Stone Touch—Once every 35 seconds or so, Halfus will occasionally become stunned for 12 sec.

Tip: Having both the Slate Dragon and the Nether Scion active together in an encounter will cause Malevolent Strikes to stack faster. Be prepared for it. Although the Slate Dragon causes Halfus to gain this buff, releasing Nether Scion is the best way to mitigate it.

Nether Scion

Frenzied Assault—Increases Halfus' melee attack speed.
See the Slate Dragon's tip.
Nether Blindness— Nether fog blinds Halfus, reducing his chance to hit, attack speed, and damage done by 25%.


Orphaned Emerald Whelp

Superheated Breath— Fire burns in the dragon's throat, empowering him to cast Scorching Breath.
Atrophic Poison—Poisons the Proto-Behemoth, reducing the power of all its offensive abilities by 6000 damage.

As you can see in the abilities above, choosing the right combination of the dragons, is the ultimate key to defeat this boss.
The right comp to use, should varie regarding the raid group. I.G: Having not so good aoe healers would advise getting time warden out, which would give the possibilitie for the raid members to step out of fire barrage (which is impossible otherwise).

Onto the next subject.

I advise us to kill at least 2 drakes; now why´s that you might ask?

Each drake that dies, incrises the dmg halfus takes by 100%, and this is very usefull because, when halfus reaches arround 20% HP he starts casting furious roar which stuns the entire raid and does damage. This stun, combined with some of the other abilities, can wipe the raid if the drakes have not been killed.

The whelps, can be released as we go through the boss just for that extra bonus. They are best tanked near their cage and should be easely aoe´d down.

Unlike magmaw, this boss as a fairly quick enrage timer (5-6 mins)

Now i´m going to give you 3 comps that we can use in the boss.

Slate Dragon, Whelps and Nether Scion : This 1 is considered 1 of the hardest comps, because it requires the most atention. In this case, its the healing debuff, that the tanks get. It will require the tanks to switch at arround 60% in the debuff. I advise you to release nether scion first so that after we release slate dragon the healing debuff stacks slower giving more time before the switch occurs.

Slate Dragon, Whelps, and Storm Rider: release the Whelps and Storm Rider immediately. Assign a dps interrupter full time to Halfus for shadow nova, because the tanks will be busy swapping. Kill Storm rider first and then the whelps. The tanks will need to tank swap around 7 or 8 stacks due to the healing debuff from slate dragon. Remember to use pally bubbles or other methods to remove stacks to buy some time on the healing debuff.

This comp is a good option for us since we have liroy and chin that can tank.

Slate Dragon, Nether Scion, and Time Warden: This 1 is kinda the same as every other comp with slate and nether, we need to burn as fast as possible slate Dragon. Have ALL the dps do this. 1 tank should tank slate and nether, and the other 1 halfus. When the halfus tank, as arround 6-7 stacks tell him to switch with the dragon tank, hopefully slate is almost dead at this point. After slate is dead burn nether and then vroom vroom halfus dies.

The last comp only as storm rider as an adition, but as always slate and nether are doing to be a priority, which will lead us to the same old same old.

As final thoughts, i´d say that for this boss, the third dragon should be something that would help us get through the boss more confortably, since the 2 main dragons are doing to be nether and slate, the third 1 is only going to be tankable (we dont need to kill him, since we will need the dps for halfus quick enrage timer). Also do not let the raid group get it by the slate dragon, its more pain in the ass for the healers to have to deal with the extra healing reduction on none tanks. And remember proto behemoth cant be killed, this mob is going to be a constant in the raid group, and he will keep casting fire barrage, which will deal a shiton of dmg to everyone, so having the healing redu debuff will most likely wipe the raid in a long run, due to the lack of mana. (if such thing happends).

Also remember that heroism/time warp/ bloodlust should NOT be used to burn faster the drakes, we will need it for the last phase which requires a bit more of healing.

A comon raid comp for us, will have to be 2 tanks, 2 healers and 6 dps.