Heroic Halfus compared to Reg Nefarion

[ragemaw]

Our 10 man raiding guild has recently killed Chogall, and there's now a push towards doing Heroic Halfus, but we haven't killed Nefarion yet. Some of the raiders seem to think that doing heroic Halfus, would help us gear up for reg Nefarion, as it is the easiest heroic boss. I'm just wondering how the gear requirements between these two fights compare. It'd be a shame to waste tons of time trying to get H halfus down if it's considerably more demanding then Nef.

Ragemaw

[morphling8]

Heroic halfus was much easier for us than nefarian. Three pulls versus a night or so on Nefarian. (this was 10 man as well)

[Nume]

I've also killed heroic halfus (with a pug I might add) and haven't yet killed Nef. Basically if you can manage a decent class setup for H Halfus, he's much easier than nef. The biggest thing you need is to have 3 capable tanks, a reliable interrupter, and some way to kick the nova's in the <50 phase after roars (a mage works great for this if they are able to time their blink correctly to avoid the 3rd roar).

[eternalwhitemoon]

Nefarian gave us a lot more grief than H Halfus.

[Snowapple]

same we kill heroic halfus 9 times and nef normal 3 ......

[Deleted]

Yeah, H Halfus is quite a pushover. Nefarian takes a bit of time on 10-man. Although Nefarian is not really a gear fight in the truest sense (the H Halfus upgrades aren't really needed there), it's just a really strict retard check. Can't do any mistakes while you can make some mistakes at H Halfus.

[ragemaw]

I've also killed heroic halfus (with a pug I might add) and haven't yet killed Nef. Basically if you can manage a decent class setup for H Halfus, he's much easier than nef. The biggest thing you need is to have 3 capable tanks, a reliable interrupter, and some way to kick the nova's in the <50 phase after roars (a mage works great for this if they are able to time their blink correctly to avoid the 3rd roar).

Seeing as our group contains all of these elements, we might try him next week.

[Slotter]

You need 3 tanks for 10 man?

[Deleted]

You need 3 tanks for 10 man?

Yep, it's a bit messy fight.

[eternalwhitemoon]

Yep, it's a bit messy fight.

Yeah, I've heard of some guilds using only 2 tanks and kiting Halfus around the room, but really that's just a lot messier than it needs to be. Much easier and more consistently downable with 3 tanks.

[Slotter]

Pretty fail encounter design then. 10 mans typically don't have extra geared tanks just hanging around (at least mine doesn't).

[Kryesta]

When we did H Halfus we did it with 2 tanks and 4 healers and 4 dps we did fine. We had a disc priest also. it was 5 solid attempts on H Halfus vs our 2 days on Nef.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I've heard of some guilds using only 2 tanks and kiting Halfus around the room, but really that's just a lot messier than it needs to be. Much easier and more consistently downable with 3 tanks.

Yeah, you can bring drakes next to Halfus and just cleave/aoe. Only messy part with 3 tanks is Halfus rotation, that's at least our biggest problem: "Uhm, who taunts what now... who has Halfus?", "erhm, I have 2 drakes, who is not doing anything?", "shiiit, I got 8 stacks in 2 seconds, TAUNT!!!", "who is stealing my threat from whelps? STOP IT!" and so on. Some epic moments on Team Speak.

[Ziarai]

We do 2 tanks and the strat for normal. It can get messy fast, but with a great interupter and some awesome healers its doable.

[Deleted]

Pretty fail encounter design then. 10 mans typically don't have extra geared tanks just hanging around (at least mine doesn't).

We have our offspecs pretty much nearly maxed in epics as well. Tight group with spec switching does the trick in many fights.

[Nume]

Its perfectly doable with 2 tanks, but its just a lot easier imo with 3. One other note that makes the dps check even easier, is if you have a rogue have them spec combat. All they need to do is sit on halfus with bladeflurry up. Once the whelps die, they'll do 100 percent extra damage to both halfus and whichever drake their bladelfurry hits. When another drake dies they do another extra 100 percent to both. A good rogue can easily top 70k dps on the fight as combat. It makes the dps check almost impossible to fail :P.
Edit: Also worth noting the dmg buff also stacks for sweeping strikes for any arms warriors, but its a CD so not nearly as effective as a combat rogue's blade flurry CD. I believe it works for other cleaves too (like chain lightning) but I'm not positive. Basically if you have any cleave type attacks, and at least 1 drake and/or whelps are dead, use halfus as your target and you'll do tons of extra damage.

[Spl4sh3r]

You need 3 tanks for 10 man?

No, you don't. If you do bring 3 tanks I can easily see struggle with the Enrage Timer if your DPS is below 20k DPS, it will also mean that your healers has to focus on more single target leaving the raid open for much more damage.

Last time I killed Heroic Halfus on 10man we used 2 tanks and we released 3 drakes and never having more than 2 drakes up after that initial phase. Also to make it easier on raid/tank healing we released Nether, Storm and Time first though they must be ready for the breath damage which will be higher than usual. Since most RNG death is from not releasing Time because tanks can get hit by barrage which will be unavoidable. Obviously you need atleast one tank with high avoidance (without block, meaning not warrior or paladin) to be able to avoid more of the debuff until you release Slate and it would also be good to have a paladin for hand of protection to reset stack atleast one time.

[eternalwhitemoon]

Yeah, you can bring drakes next to Halfus and just cleave/aoe. Only messy part with 3 tanks is Halfus rotation, that's at least our biggest problem: "Uhm, who taunts what now... who has Halfus?", "erhm, I have 2 drakes, who is not doing anything?", "shiiit, I got 8 stacks in 2 seconds, TAUNT!!!", "who is stealing my threat from whelps? STOP IT!" and so on. Some epic moments on Team Speak.

lol nice. Well, we don't have that problem. :P It's always the bear, then the warrior, then the pally, then the bear, then the warrior, then the pally, etc etc etc.

No, you don't. If you do bring 3 tanks I can easily see struggle with the Enrage Timer if your DPS is below 20k DPS, it will also mean that your healers has to focus on more single target leaving the raid open for much more damage.

It's actually not that bad; I handle the tanks and the other two heals are on raid (we of course help each other when possible). And, also, if your DPS is below 20K with a 300% damage buff (Dragon's Vengeance), you really have other problems. >.>

[Deleted]

84 wipes for nefarian.
2 for hc halfus. (I was shocked :P)

[Zath]

We do 2 tanks and the strat for normal. It can get messy fast, but with a great interupter and some awesome healers its doable.

We do the 2 tanks as well. It really helps if you have 2 paladins in the party however because you can BOP the stacks off the tanks at the beginning. Lets you get the whelps and a drake down with only 1 taunt swap usually.