Hardmode Requirements

[Superpyro]

My 10m guild is starting HMs this week. We haven't downed normal Nef yet so I'm somewhat worried and want to be sure that we have whats required to kill Halfus who we're starting with. Any reccomendations or tips are appreciated.

Raid makeup is usually the following:
MT: Pally (Myself)
OT: Warrior
Heals: RShaman, RDruid, HPally (HPriest on standby)
DPS: Huntard, Boomkin, Lock, Combat Rogue, Fury Warrior

[Deleted]

If you can kill cho'gall you can kill halfus hc. Though i'd probably start with a 2tank-4heal setup or 3tank-3heal setup.

[Aeiri]

Comp looks fine. You may in the end find it easier for your first kill to have your fury warrior go prot and use 3 tanks. The dps isn't a problem since we usually killed it with almost 2 minutes left on enrage for our first kills 3 tanking it.

If he doesn't have the gear then, just deal with 2 tanking it. As far as actual strategy there are countless ways to do it. How we do it is:

-3 tank it(DK,Warrior, DK)
-Release everything but slate on pull(we wait about ~4 seconds before releasing whelps to let tanks get a little aggro on other stuff)
- Bloodlust and aoe down whelps while single target burns storm.
- Once whelps are dead all focus on storm till its dead.
- Kill nether and then time, then finish halfus.

Tips: You can use bop/bubble to reset the mortal strike debuff on tanks, just make sure you cancelaura it immediately after it is used. Have tanks taunt off each other at a manageable mortal strike stack. I honestly don't remember what we do it at(would assume around 6-8ish but not positive.).

You don't have a mage so you need to be spot on with the interrupts on halfus after furious roar. Have someone with low latency(being an orc is a +) try to nail them. Paladins can bubble etc and get them as well. Honestly missing a few isn't really that bad if people are topped off and ready for it. Missing them in the first phase with all the adds up can be extremely bad though.

[Heilige]

Their holy paladin can always bubble rebuke one, prot paladin can let Warrior tank halfus and bubble rebuke the other come final burn. If you get more then 2 Howling Roars then DPS is slacking.

[PBitt]

I'd recommend releasing Nether, Storm and Time all at the start while leaving Whelps and Slate be until the third of those is near dead. Release both whelps and Slate, kill the whelps but leave slate up.

Slate being released is extremely useful, and the damage it does to the tanks is trivial. Especially without a mage, this makes sub 50% much much easier. For one, Halfus only does furious roar twice instead of like four times without slate, which decreased the chance that he will even cast shadow nova after furious roar by a lot, which is essentially the only thing that could wipe you at this point. Plus with his stuns and all the healers can afford to get everyone in the raid to 100%, so even if one does go off after furious roars, its survivable.

[Deleted]

The Combat Rogue will be useful too, if he dps halfus with bladeflury and doesn't take aggro on the drakes he will do 60-70k dps after the first drake dies. (sorry for the bad english)

[Deleted]

Yeah I'll second (or third or w/e) the 3 healer, 3 tank raid if your fury warrior has the gear for it, it spreads the damage out nicely and helps make sure everything is being well tanked as you'll want to pop TW as close to the pull as you can manage it.

[Angarin]

Their holy paladin can always bubble rebuke one, prot paladin can let Warrior tank halfus and bubble rebuke the other come final burn. If you get more then 2 Howling Roars then DPS is slacking.

Our first kill was in 25m halfus but that was the week right after nef.

I think saying 2 howling roars is a bit off though. We always had 3 but our first kill was 4 with like 6 seconds left to enrage. On our last 3 kills (while I still raided with them) we had 2 min & 39 sec left on enrage and we had 3 roars. I think 2 roars is a bit off but again its 25m so I'm not sure

We just had a 3 hpally bubble rotation but that was for healing. We used our 2 mages for interrupts and we had 2-3 disc priests for bubbles. 25m rules this fight with its huge versatility but be prepared for the god forsaken lag if your computer cant handle the immense aoe & all thats going in here. Its like walking into orgrimmar while downloading pron & a wow patch at the same time. Woo its bad

[Healingsara]

If the warrior isn't able to tank then a 2 tank/4 healer setup is very viable. Your backup Holy Priest's lightwells come in really handy during furious roar stuns too Tell them to burn everything at the start, if they can keep everyone up past the ~1 minute mark then it's a kill.

[Heilige]

Our first kill was in 25m halfus but that was the week right after nef.

I think saying 2 howling roars is a bit off though. We always had 3 but our first kill was 4 with like 6 seconds left to enrage. On our last 3 kills (while I still raided with them) we had 2 min & 39 sec left on enrage and we had 3 roars. I think 2 roars is a bit off but again its 25m so I'm not sure

We just had a 3 hpally bubble rotation but that was for healing. We used our 2 mages for interrupts and we had 2-3 disc priests for bubbles. 25m rules this fight with its huge versatility but be prepared for the god forsaken lag if your computer cant handle the immense aoe & all thats going in here. Its like walking into orgrimmar while downloading pron & a wow patch at the same time. Woo its bad

True, I was going by our 10 man we had for 2 weeks while vacations/shit hit. We had 1 Roar each kill but we were also stacked with only 2 tanks/3 heals and a ton of burst DPS - and significantly overgear the fight.

[Deleted]

Our 10 man first kill, with 2 tanks, we just released everything. You just need to make sure when Halfus gets stunned the tank runs like to the other side of the room so the time kiting lets his stacks drop off.

[Deleted]

You are ready for Halfus, if you get that Fury War to respec prot for the fight you're even more ready.

[PHsname]

You don't need to three tank the fight...just time your BoPs and bubbles properly between the two pallies and you guys will be fine. It's a healing-intensive fight, but your tanks also need to be on the ball about swapping and calling for cooldowns. We really don't even bother with ever releasing Slate. We found that taking the time to release him and nuke him down just took more time than it would otherwise to go ahead and kill halfus -_-

You guys will have a hard time without a DK on Conclave, but a Hunter should be able to take care of the kiting there as well. You'll have fun on Omnotron without a Shaman, though, let me tell you.

[Mammoth]

If the Fury Warrior has tanking gear then you can use him to make it easier. The reasoning behind this is that the debuff doesn't have to stack so high on the tanks, which saves you a lot of mana and healing. Have your two best tanks tank it first for 4/5 stacks. When the third tank has it, you can either wait for 4 stacks or taunt as soon as the first tank is ready, depending on the gear of the 3rd.

At the end you should have all drakes released. We normally don't kill the final one because of enrage timer. But you've got 3 tanks, so one tank can go stand somewhere nice, while the other two bounce the boss who now has periodic stuns.

As always, its the pull that requires tanking and healing CDs.

[Deleted]

You don't need to three tank the fight...just time your BoPs and bubbles properly between the two pallies and you guys will be fine. It's a healing-intensive fight, but your tanks also need to be on the ball about swapping and calling for cooldowns. We really don't even bother with ever releasing Slate. We found that taking the time to release him and nuke him down just took more time than it would otherwise to go ahead and kill halfus -_-

We release slate but don't kill him, the stun is awesomely useful.

[Deleted]

in our alt run we 3 tank (3rd tank can be in full blues/whatever)

- Release Storm, Nether, Whelps at start - AOE Whelps, Nuke Storm.
- Interrupt and bloodlust, let the 3rd tank pick up Nether
- BOP MT, try to have Storm down by the time its time to switch
- Switch and release time. Avoid fireballs. Release slate when others are dead (don't nuke him)
- Collect loots

[Triadragon]

We do it easily by doing the following:
Storm/Whelps/Nether
Aoe whelps
Release Time - make sure to dodge fireballs now
Burn Storm
Release Slate
Kill everything BUT Slate

To reiterate everyone's comments, have your pally bubble himself at about 6 stacks, then have the other tank taunt when the pally is at 6 stacks again. If you're somewhat coordinated, you can have the holy pally bubble the warr at 6 stacks, cancelauro, then pally retaunt when warr is at 6 stacks. Just pretty much pop those AOE Defensive/Heal CDs at the start when damage on the raid is the most extreme.
Keeping slate up is super useful with those stuns, and allows your to nuke the boss with ease on the healers, my raid usually pops lust when the last dragon before slate is being burned down, so that they have a fair amount of lust time on the boss with massive increased % damage done against him, but if you're finding that keeping the raid is too hard at the start, you can lust when tanks have threat for the whelps aoe.
Another sweet thing about resto shammies on this fight is that they never go oom, just make sure he has telluric currents talented, and his lightning bolts on halfus will restore ridiculous amounts of mana, which means he can spam his surges and rains all he wants.

[Deleted]

Tell your healers it's normal to burn their mana in the first minutes of the fight. It gets easier later on.

[Ormula]

Tell your healers it's normal to burn their mana in the first minutes of the fight. It gets easier later on.

Barely. Sub 50% the damage is almost as ridiculous as the first minute and a half.

[Malania]

Barely. Sub 50% the damage is almost as ridiculous as the first minute and a half.

Not really, I regen to full mana below 50% from smite spamming.