Bastion of Twilight: Halfus Wyrmbreaker - Defeated Jan 11th 2011

[Whitey]

wowwiki:Halfus_Wyrmbreaker

Week #1 (Feb 15 - Feb 21) Nether Scion, Storm Rider, Time Warden  
Week #2 (Feb 22 - Feb 28) Nether Scion, Storm Rider, Slate Dragon  
Week #3 (Mar 1 - Mar 7) Slate Dragon, Time Warden, Whelps  
Week #4 (Mar 8 - Mar 14) Nether Scion, Time Warden, Whelps  
Week #5 (Mar 15 - Mar 21) Storm Rider, Time Warden, Whelps  
Week #6 (Mar 22 - Mar 28) Nether Scion, Storm Rider, Whelps  
Week #7 (Mar 29 - Apr 4) Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Whelps  
Week #8 (Apr 5 - Apr 11) Slate Dragon, Storm Rider, Whelps
Week #9 (Apr 12 - Apr 18) Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Time Warden  
Week #10 (Apr 19 - Apr 25) Slate Dragon, Storm Rider, Time Warden  
[video=youtube;FPEs9O-Bpa0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPEs9O-Bpa0&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Originally Posted by Aliena                                                       Hello and welcome to the Bastion of Twilight  Raid Guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you  have to know about Halfus Wyrmbreaker, the first boss you'll encounter  in this instance. We completed this fight with 2 tanks, 6 healers and 17  DPS, but similar raid compositions may work just as well. This  encounter has a 6 minute enrage timer.

As soon as you walk up to Halfus' room, you'll notice several dragonkin  around him that you can interact with. The available dragons change from  week to week, and you'll need them to defeat Halfus, cause he doesn't  fight alone. As soon as you pull him, a Proto-Behemoth will come to his  aid. Halfus' and the drakes abilities change depending on which dragons  you have available.  

Storm Rider allows Halfus to cast Shadow Nova. Nether Scion gives Halfus  a Frenzy. Slate Dragon gives him a long stun. Time Warden allows his  Proto-Dragon to cast Fireballs. Whelps give the Proto-Drake a Fire  Breath. Always enable all three drakes over the course of the encounter  to counter these abilities and do additional dramage to Halfus, no  matter which you have up.

Shadow Nova deals moderate damage and knocks every person in the raid  back. Its cast is pretty much instant, but this is where the Storm Rider  comes in. Releasing him from his cage will cause him to be  mind-controlled by Halfus and attack your raid, but it will also make  his Shadow Nova interruptable.

Releasing the Time Warden will also cause him to be mind-controlled and  attack you, but it'll greatly slow down the speed of the Behemoth's fire  balls which makes them easily avoidable, in turn making your raid take a  lot less damage. Lastly, releasing the whelp cage will - yep, you  guessed it - cause them to be mind-controlled and attack your raid, but  will also reduce damage done to your raid from the boss & drakes.

So, what's the plan here? You should release the two most menacing  dragons straight away - in our case Storm Rider and Time Warden - and  have your tanks secure them. We had our main tank tank both Halfus and  the Time Warden and our Offtank took care of the Storm Rider. Ranged DPS  then took down the Storm Rider while melee DPS stayed on Halfus to  interrupt Shadow Nova. It's a good idea to set up an interrupt chain if  you have a Storm Rider.

When the first dragon died, we released our third pick, the whelp cage.  There's no need to actively kill the whelps, they don't do much damage  at all. Keep them in cleave range and they'll die eventually. At 50%  Halfus gains another ability that he'll use every 30 seconds - Furious  Roar.

Furious roar will execute 3 stuns in quick succession. You're able to  move a little between each stun, but you're NOT able to use any  abilities. You can and should move out of fireballs between stuns. Your  tank should have a cooldown up before every furious roar or he's very  likely to die during it. After the stuns, Halfus will immediately cast  Shadow Nova which must be interrupted.

To do this, mages can blink the last tick of Furious Roar and  counterspell or you can use things such as Hand of Protection and PVP  trinkets. Set up a rotation and make sure to only break the third stun,  if you do it earlier you'll just get stunned again.

It's a good idea to use Bloodlust after the dragons are dead but before  you hit 50%, when all DPS are focusing on Halfus as that should give you  the maximum amount of DPS on him. Until the gear level rises, you're  likely to need it.

That's all the mechanics to this fight. I'll attach a video of the full  encounter so you can see how we handled the various mechanics. As a  note, when we defeated this encounter we were not yet aware that we  cannot use cooldowns between Furious Roar ticks, so that resulted in  multiple tank and some DPS deaths and ultimately almost cost us the  fight here.

The enrage timer is somewhat harsh if your raid is still undergeared,  but if you execute the encounter correctly, it's definitely doable. Good  luck and have fun!

[Arcticfire]

Bump for tonight,  Week #9 (Apr 12 - Apr 18) Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Time Warden

[Whitey]

Bump for tonight,  Week #9 (Apr 12 - Apr 18) Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Time Warden

Leaving Nether and burning Slate, then time worked well for us last night.

[Arcticfire]

We did it without Slate.
 
Grab Nether and Time at the same time, kill Nether->Time then Halfus, killed him 30 sec before enrage with 1 dps down that died when Time was still up.