Halion video

Apologies again for the reduced frequency in updates - just recently started a new job, which has been very time consuming!

I wanted to post a video of our Halion kill from the other week. A guildie, Bouncydemon, makes all of our guild's official videos, he does a really excellent job on all of them, and kept it up with another awesome video of our kill last week! You can see me running amok in his PoV ones, he was in the Twilight realm with me.



You can see the video plus information on music used, PoV and links to addons/armoury/etc on the youtube page here. Go give it a thumbs up and things and check out the other videos in the channel!

Beware the shadow! Halion 25-man heroic down!

After many weeks of wipes, strategizing, frustration over cutter deaths, combat log malfunctions, and a 2% enrage wipe, Halion 25 man heroic is finally down! We finally got him down last night. Great job by everyone involved.

Cheer up, emo kid! Surviving cutters on Halion Heroic

Sorry for the lack of posts this week! I've been incredibly busy, so fell well behind on my updates!

We've been working on Ruby Sanctum 25 heroic these past weeks, and are just about at a kill (2% and we hit the enrage! Next week he'll be dead.). It's pretty crucial to avoid any cutter deaths, as the loss of a dps will likely either slow the pace or result in the shadow and fire realms becoming imbalanced, allowing Halion to heal. Similarly, the loss of a healer can put pressure on the other healers as they work to keep the tanks and raid up.

I thought I'd post some of my tricks and things I do to avoid dying to cutters as they might be helpful for others in this fight. These are particularly apt for the hardmode versions of the 10 and 25 man encounter, where there are two cutter beams, but are equally relevant for the normal versions of the fight.

First and foremost: To keep my view as clear and wide as possible (and to avoid it being restricted by the outer firewall), I angle my camera downward and zoom far out. The slight angle helps prevent my view from getting blocked by Halion's wings, which I've found happens if I position my camera looking straight down.

Onwards!

1. Checking orb location. A few seconds before each cutter timer is up, I shift my toon just enough to look to the left to get a clear view of the orb and its position. It's a subtle enough shift that it doesn't face me away from the boss completely (so it shouldn't affect dps attacks). Once I've locked the orb's position, I can shift immediately back to face the boss full on, and I now have the orb's location fully locked in my peripheral vision so I can track it as it moves and stay out of the cutter's path.

2. Boss emotes. I always play with the in-game sound and music on, and I find boss emotes incredibly helpful on fights. Their emotes will always fall in line with their abilities (in case your bossmod is lagging or inaccurate) and it's an extra audio reminder of what's coming. The cutter emote is 'Beware the Shadow' and, for those in the fire realm, the Meteor Strike emote is 'The heavens burn'.

3. Staying with the forward cutter. This may be less useful for melee (who need to avoid getting parried) but is helpful for healers and casters. I edge towards the leading cutter, as this gives me time for at least one full cast (maybe two quick ones) before I have to move again to avoid the second cutter as it comes around.

4. Strafing. Most of my movement in the Twilight realm as we rotate is strafing with minor adjustments to keep myself facing the boss. This keeps me nicely in a circle as we rotate with the beams.

5. Finding the sweet spot to stand. One week I found myself getting sucked into other's consumption voidzones a few times. I realised I was standing just slightly too far back from Halion, so I would end up a bit too close to the person being cleansed and get sucked in. All I had to do was adjust where I was standing so that I was slightly closer in and I was fine. Similarly, standing too close will give you minimal time between cutter beams, so finding that golden zone to stand in really helps.

6. Dropping off Consumption voids. When there's ample time before a cutter, I edge to the direction we came from along the outer wall, so as to leave some space for the consumption that lands during cutter. For the cutter consumptions, I move forward at the wall (towards where the leading cutter is) so that if I do get slowed in the voidzone, there's as much time as possible before that second cutter reaches me. You do need to keep an eye on the orbs as you do this and be careful not to move too far forward, as you risk getting breathed on or trapped in the tank's quadrant when the cutters start if you get too far ahead.

7. Speed boosts. For those that have them, any speed boosts seem best saved for consumptions. I use my rocket boots or, if those are on cooldown, I use travel form or kitty dash. Some of our shammies have picked up Improved Ghost Wolf for this as well, as the instant shift to ghost wolf helps them move out quickly. Our holy priest picked up Body+Soul, the bubbles give a helpful speed boost down there as well.

For druids: It seems like shapeshifting will free us from the consumption void's slow (though you may need to shift more than once until you are completely cleared of the voidzone)... t seems like it helps me, at any rate. To avoid going into caster form, the macro /use !____ Form helps a ton. It will shift you into the desired form without putting you into caster form in between. (/use !Travel Form, /use !Tree Form, etc).

8. Mitigating damage in voids. If you can, save your healthstones or any defensive cooldowns (ie Barkskin) for the consumption zones. There's a lot of damage from the debuff, its tick and from the voidzone itself, plus the ticking aura in the twilight realm. It's even worse if you're unlucky enough to have a combustion zone overlap with the consumption in phase 3. The healers will be doing everything they can to keep you up, but as ever, it's a delicate balance, particularly between the heavy damage on consumption targets and the tanks.

Feel free to post with any more tips you may have!

More posts to come over the weekend! I've got a bunch in mind that I just wasn't able to post during the week, so I'll get those up asap.

Relish this victory, mortals, for it shall be your last

Halion 10man heroic is down! I stupidly forgot to fraps it, so I sadly do not have a video, but I'll try to remember to grab it next week. We'll be working on 25m heroic this week and will hopefully be seeing a kill shortly! Phase 3 is the clincher - apart from good coordination in the Twilight Realm to avoid the cutters and good communication by your dps to keep both realms balanced, the combustion/consumption void zones are really critical. The worst we found was when two randomly ended up being placed on top of each other - the combined damage from both zones and the slow from the consumption zone was a serious killer.

Once getting the coordination down, we next had to avoid the enrage timer (which is 8 minutes). Popping heroism at the very start of the fight to push into phase 2 bought us some crucial extra time which gave some leeway when either the Physical or Twilight realm had to slow dps to even out Halion's corporeality in phase 3. As the healing is so light in phase 1 on 10 man (no adds in 10 man heroic), the healers threw in some dps as well to help push it. The timing of starting phase 3 also seemed to matter with shaving extra moments off - the faster we were able get the Physical Realm team up and dpsing, the easier it was to keep both realms balanced right away and push to the finish.

One last screenshot with the Heroic skull on the portal :D Difficult to keep both Halion and the portal in one shot, but you can see him up ahead in this one.

The heavens burn!

We were short a few people the other night, so we bonked out Ruby Sanctum (25) quickly on normal mode. I decided to record it, so here's the finished video :D The quality isn't amazing, would have liked to get it HD, but need to either figure out how to improve the quality of the in-game recorder or download a proper programme. I had a lot of fun adding the music and sounds; the music ended up syncing brilliantly, even right down to the phase changes! The track is (appropriately titled) 'A Pressing Need to Save the World' by Murray Gold.




See my discussion on healing Ruby Sanctum for more info on healing the encounter.

ETA: Sorted out how to get videos in HD, so will grab some more vids in HD quality to add soon :D

Beware the shadow! Healing Ruby Sanctum

Ruby Sanctum dropped in the past few weeks and with it, a new fuschia dragon has emerged to threaten the heroes of Azeroth! Enter Halion.

For the past few weeks my guild has been working on this fight on HardMode in 10- and 25-man. It’s been a nice break from ICC and a lot of fun learning a new fight.

I won’t go over all of the mechanics of the encounter - information on the encounter itself is better found at a place like Tank Spot. Let’s take a look at what you can expect from a healing perspective though.

It will likely help your raid to designate dispellers for the Soul Consumption debuff in the Twilight Realm and the Combustion debuff in the Physical Realm. It can be removed by magic dispellers and decursers. I don’t recommend assigning your full-time tank healers to this duty (ie your Holy Pally) as they will likely be unable to spare the GCD. Placement and handling of the debuffs and dispells will come down to your raid’s strategy.

Phase 1:

The incoming damage in Phase 1 isn’t too bad. On normal mode in particular, unless your raid members don’t move out of fire, the only real damage will be on the main tank and it’s very manageable. Don't go to sleep, but don't spam yourself oom either!

In hard mode 25-man, each Meteor Strike will also summon adds which, depending on your raid’s strategy, will be handled by your Main Tank and Off Tank, so you should be expecting additional damage from the adds. It’s also reasonable to expect some of your melee to end up tanking some of the little adds from cleave aggro - so long as the primary big add (the Living Ember) is kept far enough away from the little adds so as not to buff them, the cleave aggro damage is easily manageable and will likely be handled by your HoTs.

Phase 2:

This is where the fight gets trickier, right from transition. Make sure your Twilight Realm tank gets through the portal first to pick up Halion, but be sure you aren’t far behind! The transition to phase 2 comes when Halion reaches 75%, so I keep an eye out for that and begin HoTing our Twilight Realm tank up in preparation for the transition. 

On hardmode especially, Halion hits the tank hard, and coupled with the shadow tick damage in the Twilight Realm, the tank will be taking a lot of damage. 

Because of phasing issues, lag, etc on transition, we’ve found it best to prep the tank and pop a cooldown on him before he goes through the portal (usually a Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression from one of our priests). This is why I find HoTing the tank before going through the portal so important - because of the phasing issues there’s a risk of the tank taking damage but being unable to heal him for a second or two. With full HoTs up (plus other healer’s HoTs and cooldowns), I know there’s a little bit of leeway as the tank will still be receiving heals. I also know that I’ll be able to use Swiftmend on the tank the second they’re healable. Some Lifebloom stacks pre-transition are nice as well, as, if timed right, they’ll bloom while you’re porting down and top up the tank.

Once everyone phases in and gets into their positions, healing becomes more stable, though there’ll still be a lot to heal. Druid HoTs really shine in the Twilight Realm. The constant ticking damage is perfect for our HoTs, and your Rejuvs and Wild Growths will be great for topping up the raid. Because of all the movement in the Twilight Realm avoiding the cutters (which there’ll be two of in hardmode by the way!), all the instant HoTs will be even more helpful.

The ticking aura damage will likely end up the least of your worries in the Twilight Realm. Apart from avoiding the cutters (which will simply one-shot anyone who gets hit by them), you have the Soul Consumption debuff to worry about and the tank damage. 

The Soul Consumption in the shadow realm sucks people into the void zone and it also slows the movement speed of anyone caught in it. I try to HoT up (at least a Regrowth and Rejuv) whomever gets the debuff in the Twilight Realm to aid in their healing and to try to counteract the additional damage they take while moving out of the void zone. Any movement boosts can be very helpful when escaping the Consumption void zone. Kitty dash is good, I personally prefer to use my rocket boots as I can continue topping myself up as I run (though this luxury is only afforded to engineers). I also pop Barkskin when caught in a void zone to reduce the incoming damage. If you have a Holy Priest in the raid, speccing into Body&Soul may also be helpful for your raid - tossing a bubble on a debuff target may help them move out of the rest of the raid faster and hopefully escape the void zone more quickly as well.

The tank damage will also be heavy in the Twilight Realm, especially on hard mode. The tank will be taking the usual hits from Halion - melee, cleaves and breaths - but will also be taking ticks from the aura damage. The entire raid will also be forced to move to avoid cutters which will affect healing as well. I try to save my Swiftmend for cutters so that the instant big heal is available for either the tank or a raid member affected by Consumption. In hardmode especially as well, it was very helpful to rotate cooldowns on the tank during cutter movement to help ease the damage during a more difficult healing period.

As a druid, you likely won’t have too much trouble dealing with the ticking aura damage - your HoTs will do a good job topping the raid off, and it will be easy to keep throwing HoTs onto raid members even during cutter movement. What will be more difficult is balancing your raid heals with your heals on the tank and Consumption targets to ensure you don’t fall behind on the raid. Keeping an eye on Cutter timers and planning your movement during cutters will help you here. 

On normal mode you’ll have an easier time, with just a single cutter you’ll be able to find a spot and have minimal movement as the raid and dragon shift with the beam. The additional cutter on hardmode makes a much smaller quadrant to stand in, though. I find that cheating towards the leading cutter can give you time for a full cast or two before you need to move again. Still, that’s still not a lot of time or casts! It’s really crucial that you’re preparing for each cutter. HoTs on the tank, having swiftmend available, strategic use of Lifebloom ticks and blooms, and planning your movement will help tremendously.

Phase 3:

The third phase is essentially Phase 1 and 2 at the same time. The abilities will all be the same, just half of your raid will be going up to fight Halion in the physical realm while the other half will remain in the Twilight Realm. DPS needs to keep a careful eye on Halion’s corporeality (noted in the Blizz UI at the top of the screen - Halion’s Corporeality is at x%) - you want this percentage to remain as close to 50% as possible. If DPS gets too high in one realm, it will cause Halion to deal more damage in the other realm. 

As a druid, you will likely be asked to remain in the Twilight Realm to help deal with the aura damage. Covering the raid at this point will likely feel easier as there will be fewer people down there needing heals. This will be helpful as you continue to deal with cutters and keeping the tank and Consumption targets healed up.

A note on Battle Rezzes:

When someone dies in this encounter, their corpse appears in the physical realm. So, if someone dies (to cutters, for example) while in the Twilight Realm, their corpse will disappear from the Twilight Realm and you’ll suddenly find them out of range. This can make it tricky to do battle rezzes, particularly if you are assigned to stay in the Twilight Realm.

This can be handled many ways. One is for you to take a portal up to go get them - this is the least desirable solution in my opinion. Depending on your current position, it may take time for you to get to a portal. You risk phasing into the Physical Realm into fire or find yourself at the wrong end of the dragon. When porting back down you face the same potential problems and, if you’re not careful about watching the cutter timers, you may even port yourself right into a cutter. All this while, the raiders in the Twilight Realm won’t be receiving your HoTs. 

If your raid has several resto druids, your raid leader may decide to send one of you into the Physical Realm in phase 3 while the other stays in the Twilight Realm, though depending on your raid makeup they may want you both to remain in the Twilight Realm.

Another solution is to have DPS druids in your raid go to the Physical Realm to ensure Battle Rezzes are available if needed.

The optimal solution would of course be for no one to die!

A last note on one ability of Halion’s that bears mentioning:

Twilight Precision: Halion’s insight into movement between phases allows him to deal unexpected strikes, increasing his chance to hit by 5% and reducing the enemy’s chance to dodge his attacks by 20%.

This is basically the Ruby Sanctum’s ‘Chill of the Throne’ (but no Strength of Wrynn buff in here!). Expect big hits on your tank!

That’s all for now! Feel free to post with any questions, comments, or any tips you’ve picked up for this fight!



Edit: Check out this post for one of my videos of Ruby Sanctum.