Heroic Halfus 10 Man

[zuke8675309]

With the raid comp that the OP stated, I'd have the warlock park his pet way back on the stairs and have the rogue pull with tricks to the warlock pet. This prevents a tank from stacking Malevolent Strike to a high number before the pull is even established. The tank who will take Halfus first can release Nether and then grab halfus while the other tank gets storm plus whelps. Pop hero, burn a drake, release time, burn the rest of the drakes while trading halfus back and forth and you're good to go.

Also key is a focus interrupt macro for both tanks and melee. Pop tank cooldowns early and often as well.

The fight really rests on 2 things: establishing the pull properly and interrupting shadow nova every time.

[Royalcrown]

Just 3 tank it. Who cares about the idiots in here "It wasnt designed for 3 ta...blah blah blah" Its like alot of other encounters, you make the adjustments that make it easier on you. Hell, i Ret tanked Heroic Chimaeron just last night, think it was designed for that? Nope.

[Goyf]

We downed heroic Halfus last week for the first time (and last night again). Our normal raid comp is the following

Tanks- Pally (me) / Warrior
Healers- Priest / Druid / Druid
DPS- Ele Shaman / Shadow Priest / Hunter / Mage / DK

Anyways, we don't have anyone that is willing to be the 3rd tank so we had both of our priests go Disc. This will give you 4 healers for the very hectic beginning of the fight while still allowing them to DPS when things calm down a bit.

At the start of the fight I (prot Pally) take the Whelps, Nether Scion and the Storm Rider. We lust off the bat and aoe down the whelps. When the whelps are down, pull up the Time Warden and have your tank grab him. The warrior uses Shield Wall when he gets to about 12 stacks. Once Shield Wall has one second left I hit him with a bubble and he cancels it to clear his stacks. Once he gets up to about 8 stacks or so we switch, with me tanking Halfus and him on the dragons. Again, I will use Guardian of Ancient Kings at 12 stacks and then bubble them off of myself. Once the Whelps, Nether Scion, and Storm Rider are down we burn the Time Warden and pull up the Slate Dragon. We don't actually kill the Slate Dragon but he hits like a wet noodle so you may as well enjoy the benefit of Halfus stunning himself.

[Deleted]

3 tanks or 4 healers, makes the fight really really easy.

[Gaudaloht]

we make 3 tanks 3 heals
1 tank with 2 drakes and whelps (me as prot war) when one of the drakes die i taunt the drake on the other tanks ofc we kill one by one and my shockwaves with blood and thunder + vengance end killing the whelps also stack everything in the middle so your guys can cleave, firemagestuff like champss
and the other tanks switching halfus and 1 drake

[Fedexkilla]

We've had Heroic 10 man Halfus on farm for a month or two now and its the same strat for us:

2 tanks: The tank taking Halfus taunts and runs to the stairs with no dps touching him and the drake tank picks up one drake and has the other 2 MD'ed and Tricks to him. We release Time, Nether, and Storm first and mow through the first 2 drakes then release the whelps by the time whelps and last drake are down its usually p2 time and lots of Furious Roars.

Hope this helps.

[Chicolatino]

Just 3 tank it. Who cares about the idiots in here "It wasnt designed for 3 ta...blah blah blah" Its like alot of other encounters, you make the adjustments that make it easier on you. Hell, i Ret tanked Heroic Chimaeron just last night, think it was designed for that? Nope.

Actually the fight is made perfectly for 3 tanks, BUT since you have that nifty lil robot that prevents you from being 1 shot (reduces ur hp down to 10k, while active only) it allows for the 3rd tank to remain dps =) moar deepz = faster kill xD

personally, OP should just use strat that works best for his grp comp. Some guilds can run 2 tanks 3 heals, others need 3 tanks. To each their own =). My guild tho does 2 tanks, 3 healers. 1 tank pulls halfus and gets threat on nether scion (tank kites halfus until scion is released), 2nd tank gets welps and storm rider. Bloodlust once threat is established. Once whelps are dead, release Time Warden. tank 1 uses divine shield once he is at 8 stacks, when he gets 8 again, tank 2 taunts. when tank 2 gets 8 he bubbles stacks off, and goes for another 8. rinse and repeat. whelps > storm rider > nether scion > time warden > halfus

[Superpyro]

My guild and I just downed this last week for the first time. It took us 1.5 hours to figure out which strat worked for us and another 30 to perfect it before the kill.

We tried it to begin with with 2 tanks but the third just makes a huge difference because of the MS debuff. We popped whelps/storm/nether at the beginning and aoe'd the whelps. We saved hero for storm because most aoe is instant cast and then burned nether. We popped Slate and Time but didn't kill them because our dps was weak. Once nether was down it was a straight burn on Halfus.

A trick to help delay the mass stacks of MS before nether is active include having a hunter MD halfus to your tank who is standing across the room or you could have your rogue do it with a Tricks + Ambush pull. Consider having your initial Halfus tank swap out a stam trink for an avoidance trink to help out with this.

Also our third tank was a pug melee dps with a tank offspec. So i suggest having your warrior dps gear a tank spec for fights like these.

EDIT: I also would suggest asking your rogue to go combat. Blade Flurry cleaving is OP as hell for this fight if he cleaves from Halfus to the drakes/whelps. Just be sure that he doesn't push under 50% and start the Furious Roars before your raid is prepared for it.

[Karshda]

Thanks for all the strategies guys. Didn't think i would get his many posts, we will jus thave to go through them all and see which one works with our team the best.

[cleotaurus]

One tank pick up everything, 2nd/3rd tank bounce halfus back and forth. This is the optimal tanking strategy. The tank taking the most damage is the one that doesn't get the MS debuff. Any other strat where you have someone tanking other stuff in additional to halfus is just additional strain on heals that is not necessary. Releasing time at the start or later is optional - there really is no benefit to either strategy, you are just shifting damage from the raid to the tank. Two tanking it is doable but it just makes it artificially harder because you have to bomb heals on tanks with MS debuffs. Tanks generally do very respectable dps on the first half of the fight, so the disadvantage from less dps classes is negligible.

[Mordin Solus]

i usualy tank in this fight and when i (druid tank) get to around 8 stacks i ask for the palies shield to remove then, wich i promply remove to pick up halfus again. our release order is obviously storm+nether+welps and once one of the big drakes dies we pick up time and then slate. we also pop hero during the first secs to kill welps and one of the drakes fast. on my second 8 stacks of mortal strike the ot (palie) picks halfus while i grab one of his drakes. once he gets to 8 stacks he removes them with shield and from then on its just taunt whenever it is needed.

[Cirque]

Strat 2 tanks:

Release order: Nether/Storm/Whelps all 3 at the same time. After the whelps have died release Time so that you can avoid the fire balls. Have the tanks interrupt all the Shadow Nova's. If tanks are having problems with this just put 1 interrupter on the boss who can also damage him to around 55% so that Phase 2 goed in straight away after the last drake dies. You never release Slate cuz he is shit. Let a mage blink the last stun to interrupt the nova.

This is also how we do it, except we release Time right before Storm dies (whelps -> storm -> nether). I guess both works. We BoP stacks off the tanks, the tank simply has a /cancelaura Hand of Protection macro'd to all his abilities to ensure he gets rid of the hand ASAP.

Other than that you just nuke your brains out, the fight only gets easier. Preferably have a mage indeed blink and CS the cast during the stun, but meh, even if you can't - care. What you should do however is during the stun jump and move at the same time to get out of the fireball casts, that will make it a lot easier if your healers are, for whatever reason at this point, still stressed.