Getting Rocked by Halfus...

[Solarshot]

So my guild went in to BoT and did great on trash, and got up to Halfus... Well we got to the boss, and he has the Whelps, Slate Dragon, and the Storm Rider. The AoE was soo bad that the three healers were having a hell of a time keeping up the raid. The healers we have, have been threw all of ICC, and Heroic modes as well and we have never seen such a huge problem keeping people a live. So we tried many strats, and still have issues with healers having REAL LOW mana after we get the Storm drake down. We have interrupts on the boss as well so we don't get the nova he throws out...

Just an FYI, we also have downed Magmaw, and the ODS in Blackwing Descent. Yeah they were hard as hell, but do able. Another tid bit of info, the healers have been healing together since BC so they kind of know how to work together and not heal needlessly. Also people are at least 340+ and healers are 348+ gear levels.

Please a little help on this, because we are just getting rocked!

way we do it against that comp, is tank storm and halfus tank swap appropriately and blust/heroism to get storm down asap. Once he is down release whelps and aoe them. This may seem obvious if you've been doing it this way, but ive read numerous times people releasing whelps and their respective drake at the same time which makes no sense to me. While doing this just assign a shaman or someone who can easily focus interrupt halfus' knockback.

[jearle]

Whelp damage isn't AoE damage unless your tanks are extremely, extremely poor. For the AoE healing to be so immediate and dire, it had to've been shadow nova interrupts. Looking at my own guild's latest kill/attempts, whelp damage doesn't even register on anyone but the tank.

Just my opinion. Take it or leave it, no response necessary.

The whelps empower the Behemoths scorch ability, so yes they do bring a good amount of AoE damage.

With your set up there is a lot of tactics you could use, I would recommend releasing the Storm and the Whelps, Burning them down and releasing the Slate and offtanking it like Pikozz said. If your interupts are good on second phase then this will almost guarantee a kill.

Dont forget pallys can wipe the MS debuff, work that into your strat.

[Kissmonstar]

Dont forget pallys can wipe the MS debuff, work that into your strat.

I've seen this said a couple of times, but when I bubbled my stacks stayed on. This makes me think either 1.) you guys are passing on incorrect info, or 2.) I was too quick to use my /cancelaura macro.

[Shartadin]

I've seen this said a couple of times, but when I bubbled my stacks stayed on. This makes me think either 1.) you guys are passing on incorrect info, or 2.) I was too quick to use my /cancelaura macro.

I guarantee, 100%, absolutely they can be wiped with bubble.

Last night, due to strange circumstances I ended up having to solo tank Halfus from 90% after the 3rd drake died to 0, which of course required me to clear my stacks (did it about the first time i got to 10). Combined this with stuns from slate and some kiting to kill it as I died.

Point is - it definitely worked.

[Khazzeron]

We had the same setup as the OP and did fine. By far the easiest out of the six we got on our first raid weekend.

My best guess is the tanks are stam tanks and the DPs weren't interrupting the shadow thing.

Shouldnt matter unless the tanks tanking naked. I"ve gemmed full Mastery, and am now full stam, both are close to the same. Mastery was better pre heroics when healers had no gear, it hasn't made a big difference now that people are geared. Like I said I went back to stam and have seen no diff.

[Jinto]

Shouldnt matter unless the tanks tanking naked. I"ve gemmed full Mastery, and am now full stam, both are close to the same. Mastery was better pre heroics when healers had no gear, it hasn't made a big difference now that people are geared. Like I said I went back to stam and have seen no diff.

If you are a warrior (or paladin) just change it back to mastery when you get to Neferian. Will save you some pain.

[Amghealme]

Shouldnt matter unless the tanks tanking naked. I"ve gemmed full Mastery, and am now full stam, both are close to the same. Mastery was better pre heroics when healers had no gear, it hasn't made a big difference now that people are geared. Like I said I went back to stam and have seen no diff.

I beg to differ, I'll let you look up the reasons why.

[Khazzeron]

I beg to differ, I'll let you look up the reasons why.

Thus why a majority of the top raiding guilds tanks still gem stam, I've been in all the elitist jerk / tank spot threads about it. It's all up in the air. TO each his own.

[Egeldi]

My guild had the same combination our first time in there and it was brutal. This week we had Storm Rider and Whelps both out of commission and it was much easier (got him on our second attempt that lockout).

On that first week we found our attempts got a lot better having a dedicated interrupter on the boss with the tank. So I'd interrupt one (shield bash) then he would interrupt one (kick). The rogue was having some lag too that night though, which made things a great deal more difficult.

It's one of those RNG things where one week it'll be really rough, and the next week it'll be brutal beyond all reason. Just gotta deal with it.

[Deleted]

We did Halfus our first time last night, and oneshotted. By far the easiest raidboss in T11 content so far..

Im gonna go ahead and say Conclave is easier. atleast thats how i found it. or well halfus was kinda easy to but... conclave was Easy...

[Frozendekay]

I beg to differ, I'll let you look up the reasons why.

Xav (Premonition) and Riggnaros (Blood Legion) are both going full mastery/avoidance setups. Sejta (paragons GM) is going for a full stamina setup.

Whatever works best for your raid.