HEROIC: Bastion of Twilight: Halfus Wyrmbreaker - Defeated 22/05/11

[TeaLeaf]

@TL: in your post you clearly stated that at the moment we cannot afford to bring less dps

Aye, but that was to try to underline that this is a heroic mode encounter and to bring your A-game, not to be taken as a gospel truth about the specific dps levels. The actual dps we need will vary depending on how many adds we kill and how many healers we need to survive those adds.  Knowing that info you can work out what to do, but without a set strategy you cannot mandate a dps requirement.  We experience it, we adapt and then we overcome.

[Twyst]

Aye, but that was to try to underline that this is a heroic mode encounter and to bring your A-game

We're PRO and should always have our A-game with us even in normal encounters, along with a B-game for backup

[Twyst]

DK tank knowledge foo:
DnD infront on whelps, Grip/taunt storm in - concentrate on storm only, Outbreak, pestilence when Time is in range. Conserve runic mana to get DRW up ASAP. Pop DRW, reapply and spread more diseases.
Pop AMS if plenty of flames around.
ERW if needed, BB like mad and reapply DnD when off CD.
I'm sitting at 202k HP raid buffed, am gemming stamina AND two +stam trinkets. I would say that you need this kinda HP to handle 3 drakes.

Now is the time to monitor the Halfus taunt - you need to interupt right away so always have some runic power or a blood rune held back. Pop a dodge trinket just before he arrives to avoid the initial application of stacks.
DK's will probably need two mitigation trinkets because we get hit more frequently than other tanks (no block or equivalent mechanic) so stack faster.

[TeaLeaf]

Just 1m HP left, probably 10 seconds of raid dps.  Sunday I guess.....

[TeaLeaf]

Problems:
Interrupts are damn tricky when we run without melee, which unfortunately we had to do last night.  It puts a shed load of emphasis on the tank multi-tasking and in this fight it means Whitey had to tank Halfus, tank Nether, monitor the debuff stack count, cast & cancel his BOP to reset stack count, maintain aggro on both targets, call switches, trigger CD abilities to boost avoidance during the early manic phase *and* hit the shadow nova interrupt within the first 25% of the 1.5 second cast time (any later and it seems not to work).  That's a shed load of trouble for one tank and I'm pretty impressed you managed so well Whitey, but I think it might be better to drop one ranged and add a melee who can handle full-time interrupts on Halfus during P1 - we lose some AOE on whelps, but I reckon the added security would be the overall winner on this.

Ranged DPS need to focus on remaining relatively grouped up in mid during the fight.  When fireballs are dropping all around you it is tempting to keep shuffling outwards a little bit each time you move, but we *have* to remember to regroup.  Make your prio getting back into healing rain to help the healers out, they love it when you are close enough for their AOE heals to work!

Aggro:
We had some issues with pulling aggro last night, mainly due to ranged not letting Twisted establish more solid aggro on whelps & Time early on.  We somewhat fixed this by doing single target dps on Storm first (15 secs)  - this allowed Twisted to get threat on Storm and use AOE abilities to gain a threat lead on whelps & Time.  After 15 secs we then called warp and began to add AOE spells via Storm.   We need to be more aware of threat on Time though as several ranged pulled Time out of the pack, so you might need some other maco'd abilities Twisted to hit Time directly a little more often.   I also think that it would help to delay the spreading of AOE a little further than just the 15 seconds to allow more solid threat on Time as he was too easy to pull aggro on and several ranged ended up tanking for extended periods as taunts are on CD pretty much full-time.

What we do:
For those not in the instance here's the general summary of what we did.

The Pull
MT (Whitey) pulls Halfus and gets a druid speed boost to kite him to opposite corner of room - just prior to Halfus reaching Whitey a priest uses Leap of Faith to pull Whitey another 40 yards away from boss.  This delays Halfus stacking MS debuffs on the MT a few seconds and it really helps healers.
A ranged releases Nether for MT to pick up (he'll be leap of faith'd into the Nether area).
OT (Twisted) releases Storm & Whelps.  
A hunter releases Time and MDs to OT.
Tank switches called earlier 4-5 stacks initially as we found that 6 stacks and a drake still kill the MT unless we use 'debuff bypass' healing.
Once targets picked up MT & OT pull everything together in mid to help splash damage.

The DPS
DPS burns Storm for 15 secs (probably going to extend this to 25-30 seconds), this allows solid OT aggro on Storm, TIme & whelps and positioning to occur.
Time Warp called & Volcanic pots/other dps pot used at this point - AOE spells can then be spread into the pack via Storm but prio is still Storm.

DPS Prio:
Storm
Whelps
Nether
Time
then Boss.

6 minute enrage timer.

We're 1 million HP from DMR's first heroic kill, which in this fight is nothing more than 10 seconds of dps.  So it was a real nice effort last night - best try was 1 million HP left as we hit enrage and we did that with 3 ranged dps down for the last 25%.  

It's a kill for sure on Sunday if we all handle our business.  
:dmw:

[TeaLeaf]

Healer Help
Spirit link totem passes through mortal strike effects. For example, pop spirit link totem next to the 10 stacked tank whilst raid is healed up (rain/tranq/AOE heals) - that healing is constantly distributed to the tank with no penalty.  Not helpful regularly, but if we needed a temporary boost to finish an add or keep a tank alive then it works if we have people within 10 yards for 6 seconds.
(note this also works on Chimaeron P2)


Shadow Nova interrupts in P2 - must have a mage to blink>CS, or PVP trink or racial to remove stun.  Set order.

Free-action potions?

I think it is worth bumping these for tonight so that we get the kill.  Spirit Link is huge for those last few seconds on Whitey before the taunt.  As is prepping for the P3 nova interrupts.  Let's be prepared!