Halls of Origination, a 5-man instance located in Uldum, seems larger and scarier than it actually is. However, it's easy to get the hang of things, and you'll spent most of your dungeoneering time on boss encounters. Trash is pretty thin on the ground.

Halls of Origination bosses drop ilevel 333 loot, which puts it around the pre-heroic blue level. You'll want a lot of this stuff before you start queuing for heroics.

Halls of Origination is basically just seven boss encounters. The only advice I can give you is to kill the big guy in any given pull first, and don't be shy about crowd-controlling the others. Additionally, stay well behind the tank in the hallway before you go outside to Earthrager Ptah. The hall has a series of spawning mob packs (akin to the hallway after the second boss in Halls of Lightning) that will charge and stun the closest person. Ideally, you want this to be your tank. Just as ideally, you do not want to unleash hell on these mobs while your tank is sitting there stunned. But that probably won't happen. Do I sound bitter?

Temple Guardian Anhuur

Anhuur himself is not a tough boss, but the encounter itself can be challenging if your group doesn't coordinate before the event starts. Anhuur should be tanked and spanked on the platform you'll find him, and his only real ability of note is a health drain that as far as I'm aware can't be interrupted. However, twice during the fight, he'll go immune to all damage and start channeling Reverberating Hymn.

"Big deal," you say, "300 damage per second is nothing." Well, no. The problem is, it stacks -- and you can't interrupt it until you've dealt with Anhuur's damage shield. How do you get it off him? By dropping down in to the pit on either side of him and clicking the switches that power the shield. You'll find one on each side of him, so you should assign players to go to the left and right. While down in the pit, you'll also be attacked by pit vipers, which can put a poison DoT on you. The damage is a nuisance, but it's not dangerous unless you let Reverberating Hymn keep stacking ... and stacking ... and stacking. Obviously, time is of the essence.

Once both switches are clicked off, Anhuur is vulnerable again, and someone needs to interrupt Reverberating Hymn as quickly as possible. Once that's done, he goes back to being a tank-and-spank until he puts up the shield again. Simply repeat the process described here, and voila -- dead boss.

Loot

• Anhuur's Hymnal (heroic)
• Awakening Footfalls (heroic)
• Belt of Petrified Tears (heroic)
• Darkhowl Amulet (heroic)
• Poison Fang Bracers (heroic)

Earthrager Ptah

And you thought you'd never have to see Marrowgar again. Fortunately, Marrowgar's Egyptian-themed cousin is just as easy as he is. Ptah is really just a basic tank-and-spank with a Stay Out of Bad element and a brief add phase. The only caution you'll need to exercise is keeping any melee DPS well away from the tank, as Ptah can chain a nasty cleave to them. If Quicksand spawns under you, run out.

At 50 percent, Ptah will disappear and summon adds, although only two are elites. Have the tank pick them up (DPS not going wild and crazy on them as soon as they spawn helps with this), and the group simply kills them. When they're dead, Ptah will reappear, and unless your entire group dies one by one to Quicksand, the fight should be in the bag.

As an aside, you can conduct the entire fight from the back of one of the neutral camels nearby if you want.

Loot

• Breastplate of the Risen Land (heroic)
• Bulwark of the Primordial Mound (heroic)
• Mouth of the Earth (heroic)
• Soul Releaser (heroic)
• Underworld Cord (heroic)

Anraphet

Half the trouble with Anraphet is simply getting to him in the first place. When Brann Bronzebeard unlocks the door for you, you'll have to fight your way to four different elemental bosses in order to get Anraphet to spawn. In practice, you can edge around most of the trogg mob packs, but you'll have to kill at least a few. The elemental bosses are basic tank-and-spanks plus Stay Out of Bad, nothing special.

Anraphet himself is considerably tougher, mostly because he deals a lot of damage to both the tank and group. Before you pull him, he'll activate Destruction Protocol to get rid of any remaining troggs, so at least you don't have to worry about them.

He will spawn Alpha Beams on a random player; run out as quickly as possible. He will use Crumbling Ruin, but unfortunately I don't remember whether this is solely on the tank or on the rest of the group as well. However, the genuinely dangerous ability is Omega Stance. There is no way to prevent or avoid the damage from this ability, and everyone in the group will take 40,000 damage by the time Anraphet finishes channeling. If you have a damage reduction or survivability cooldown, pop it to help your healer out, as he/she will otherwise be going nuts healing through the total 200,000 damage to the whole group. If you can survive Omega Stance (I think he typically cast it twice in the average group I had on the beta), you should be fine.

Loot

• Alpha Bracers (heroic)
• Anraphet's Regalia (heroic)
• Boots of Crumbling Ruin (heroic)
• Mantle of Soft Shadows (heroic)
• Omega Breastplate (heroic)

Isiset

If you've done the Trial of the Champion 5-man and gotten Eadric the Pure at any point (why am I asking this? of course you have), you already know the major gimmick for this fight: Supernova. When she starts casting it, turn your character away immediately to avoid the damage and disorient effect. Apart from that, she'll split herself into adds at 60 and 30 percent, each with a different ability. In practice, it makes little difference which you kill first, but if you want to make things easiest on your healer, I'd advise killing the Astral Rain first. Whichever add you kill, Isiset will lose its ability when she reappears, and the Astral Rain has a Starfall-like ability that does damage to the whole group. However, if you have mostly caster DPS, you may want to kill the Veil of Sky instead, as Isiset will otherwise retain the ability to reflect magic damage back to attackers. Whichever you choose, you'll have the opportunity to kill another add at 30 percent, but the most important thing to do is make sure you're facing away from Supernova.

Loot

• Armguards of Unearthly Light (heroic)
• Blood of Isiset (heroic)
• Legwraps of Astral Rain (heroic)
• Nova Band (heroic)
• Ring of Blinding Stars (heroic)

Ammunae

On the beta, it was common for groups to bum rush this boss and ignore his accompanying abilities, which did respectable damage but were healable as long as no one consulted the healer about that strategy prior to pulling. Technically, this is an add fight, and you should be getting used to the idea of killing the seed pods that Ammunae will spawn, as they're more of a threat on heroic. They will not only heal him but also spawn an add if left alone, so ... kill them. They don't have a lot of health.

Ammunae will frequently select random targets for Consume Life Energy, which will raise the player above the ground in a strangling animation and keep them incapacitated for a few seconds. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to avoid this, so it just has to be healed through. This gives him 10 life energy each time, and when he has enough energy, he'll use an ability called Rampant Growth that will simultaneously do 27,000 damage to the group and spawn adds from any seed pod that hasn't yet been killed. Naturally, you don't want many, or ideally any, of them up. Kill seed pods, heal through Consume Life Energy, and make sure people are above 27,000 health at all times (which shouldn't be tough, given Cataclysm health pools).

Loot

• Band of Life Energy (heroic)
• Bloodpetal Mantle (heroic)
• Robes of Rampant Growth (heroic)
• Seedling Pod (heroic)
• Slashing Thorns (heroic)

Setesh

Setesh himself isn't too tough. As a matter of fact, he isn't even really tankable. His only ability of note is Chaos Bolt, which he'll cast at random players and which can't be avoided. As such, threat is pretty much a non-concern on him, so DPS players can just unload on him and not worry about watching Omen.

However, the adds that Setesh summons can easily wipe your group if people aren't paying attention. Every 30 seconds, a void portal will open and two types of adds will emerge: the Void Seeker and the Void Sentinel. Void Sentinels must be tanked. Void Seekers can also be picked up, but the group has to keep an eye on them; they will periodically channel an Anti-Magic Prison (it's a big purple bubble and pretty unmistakable) on a player, which will render him/her immune to all healing. If this gets channeled on the tank and it's not interrupted, you'll have a dead tank and a pack of loose adds in short order. It goes without saying that having multiple Void Seekers up at once isn't a good idea. From what I recall, a void portal once opened will continue to spawn adds and can't be eliminated, so the fight is basically a DPS race.

Some groups I had on the beta killed adds and others just kept them tanked while DPS killed Setesh. Use your best judgment as to what your group's DPS can handle. If you're going to ignore adds, DPS should keep an eye out for any Anti-Magic Prisons channeled on a tank who may not have an interrupt off cooldown at the time. This can't be over-stressed, as this was a frequent cause of wipes in any situation with two or more Void Seekers up at the same time.

Loot

• Chaotic Wrappings (heroic)
• Helm of Setesh (heroic)
• Helm of the Typhonic Beast (heroic)
• Hieroglyphic Vest (heroic)
• Scepter of Power (heroic)

Rajh

In my opinion, Rajh is one of the more badass-looking bosses in the game, but you're here for his loot and not because he's pretty. Right. Well, he'll put you through your paces before you get a crack at anything good. As you might expect of the "Construct of the Sun," you'll be seeing a lot of fire damage on this fight.

He has an ability similar to the warrior's Heroic Leap in Inferno Leap; this appears to be randomly targeted, so you'll just have to heal through it. However, you can limit group damage by spreading out so he can't hit more than one person at a time. He summons a Sun Orb that functions a bit like Al'ar's DIve Bomb ability, but there's no warning given of which person it'll land on. Again, it has to be healed through, although I've seen some information stating that the summon can be interrupted (I had assumed on the beta that it wasn't). Either way, it's another reason to stay spread out. Add/s called Solar Winds roam the room for the duration of the fight (like the tornados you see on the eagle phase of the Zul'jin fight); avoid them as much as possible, because they do fire damage and a knockback to anyone they hit.

The neatest aspect of this fight is actually a random buff called Blessing of the Sun, which hugely increases a random player's size and damage output (done the Terokk fight? Same deal here). If you get this, pop your cooldowns and go for broke.

Loot

• Band of Rays (heroic)
• Blade of the Burning Sun (heroic)
• Fingers of Light (heroic)
• Hekatic Slippers (heroic)
• Left Eye of Rajh (heroic)
• Legguards of Noon (heroic)
• Red Beam Cord (heroic)
• Right Eye of Rajh (heroic)
• Solar Wind Cloak (heroic)
• Sun Strike (heroic)

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Tags: 5-man, 5-man-guide, ammunae, ammunae-strategy, anraphet, anraphet-strategy, earthrager-ptah, earthrager-ptah-strategy, guide-to-halls-of-origination, halls-of-origination, halls-of-origination-guide, halls-of-origination-strategy, hoo, how-to-do-halls-of-origination, isiset, isiset-strategy, rajh, rajh-strategy, setesh, setesh-strategy, temple-guardian-anhuur, wow-halls-of-origination, wow-halls-of-origination-guide, wow-hoo

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cataclysm