Raid Rx: Heroic Halfus healing case study
by Matt Low 
Mar 7th 2011 at 3:00PM
If there ever was an encounter in which Atonement-specced priests really stood out, this would be it. Aside from that, Halfus on heroic mode is a great test for healing leaders and raid leaders on the art of syncing defensive cooldowns.
Objective: Can your healing team help the raid survive the first minute of the encounter?
Once you get past that first minute, the hardest part is over, and your raid will get there. In this post, I'll show you a textbook case of cooldown planning from start to finish.
On the the matter of cooldowns, it looks like shaman will be getting their own fairly soon.
For restoration druids, Malfurion's Gift appears to reduce Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes. The actual effect of Tranquility has not changed. If I were to guess, I'd say it would get modified further for reduced incoming damage while the spell is being channeled. No confirmation yet either way.Spirit Link Totem: Reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such tha teach player end sup with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3 minute cooldown.
So how does one survive Halfus in the 25-player raid?
The most commonly used textbook method is for the encounter to have your raid arrayed in a fashion like this:
Skull Halfus
Shield Where all of your tanks should end up
Red X Drakes and whelps
Swords Melee DPS
Healers We used seven and made sure they were scattered throughout the staging area.
Ranged DPS can simply stand around the room. There are no location requirements. Just make sure they're not standing directly on top of the tanks.
This setup ensures that tanks will always be the main players who benefit from Atonement, as they are the closest to Halfus. Since the initial kill targets are the drakes and whelps, the melee are standing on the opposite side of the tanks. Unfortunately, Atonement heals might still hit the occasional blood worm or some other random pet. Ideally, it wouldn't heal the blood worms at all, since the tanks are taking such a major beating at the start anyway.
For our first kill, we utilized the skills of two discipline priests, one holy priest, two resto druids, one resto shaman and one holy paladin. Before going in, we looked at what defensive healing cooldowns were available.
- 2 x Power Word: Barrier
- 3 x Tranquility
- 3 x Divine Hymn
- 1 x Aura Mastery
- 2 x Pain Suppression
- 1 x Hand of Sacrifice
- 1 x Guardian Spirit
- 1 x Divine Sacrifice (Also had a protection paladin)
This is also a great time to use your Heroism/Time Warp/Bloodlust.
How initial assignments were done
- Holy paladin on the tank who has both Time Warden and Storm Rider
- Discipline priest on the tank who has Nether Scion and the tank on Halfus
- Discipline priest on the tank who has the whelps and the tank on Halfus
The rest of the healers were busy maintaining the raid. You'll notice we didn't have a set player on Halfus' tank. The entire healing core prioritized him with spells depending on the situation. If the tank on Nether Scion had stabilized, I would fire off a shield or another healing spell on him.
Our first discipline priest then used Power Word: Barrier directly on top of all four tanks. I threw out my Barrier once I saw the first one disappear.
The other storyline to this is for your tanks to be precise in their taunts and cooldown usage. Single-target CDs were held in reserve for the tank when they needed it. Even if a tank was busy wrestling one of those drakes, they were also prepared to taunt Halfus when it was needed to help reset the healing debuff that was added.
When the first drake went down, both discipline priests immediately switched to Smite mode. The trick here was to maintain focus on the tanks. Be prepared for an instant Power Word: Shield or Penance. With the additional modified healing bonuses from the dead drakes, it was easy to keep them alive.
Still, it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
I advise your priests to carry a Glyph of Desperation. Since Halfus stuns the entire raid (unavoidable, mind you), keep it in your back pocket and be prepared to use it if your tank isn't at full health. If Halfus roars and the tank isn't prepared, you'll need to step in and make a desperate play to slow down the incoming hits to ensure your tanks survive.
Use Rebirth effects as needed. The first take down is always going to be messy. Interrupt teams need to make sure they have their stuff together. As healers, be prepared to call a snap AoE cooldown in case a Shadow Nova does get loose. Consider having your DPS druids and priests use their Tranquility and Divine Hymn first in the event that does happen. Just be prepared to have a plan ready.
Now, if you are tackling Halfus in a 10-player raid, I may not be of much help. I don't have the experience of having done it on 10. From my understanding, most groups relied on two to three tanks and really amazing DPS to help them power through it. The same general principles do apply in terms of cooldown usage. I believe it is a little more forgiving. Survive the first opening moments of the fight, and you win.
Good luck!
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.
Filed under: Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Raid Guides
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Twill Mar 7th 2011 3:32PM
Just got Cho'gall down a few weeks ago and found out that my Boomkin butt is going to tank for the heroic version of this encounter. So excited. Can't wait to see how it all works out.
(10 man BTW).
Everyone -- Please give your strats / tips for whatever difficulty you do, I'm sure we will all appreciate it!
Twill Mar 7th 2011 3:33PM
Like I think I'm going to use 3 Wild Mushroom detonations to pull the whelp group ^.^
As a moonkin it does like 80k initial DPS, hopefully bears get 40k in which I can save my Challenging Rawr for later
Manadar Mar 7th 2011 3:57PM
10-man is the same, but with less CDs, and if you're running with an extra tank which is a must if you don't have a prot paladin the DPS must be pretty insane on the whelps.
Firestyle Mar 7th 2011 4:00PM
That's a pretty intense healing setup and cooldown management scheme on this. On 10 man, we just heal our asses off. Once time is out, things go much better and people have to avoid fire and it's a win.
silentk Mar 7th 2011 4:04PM
The trick to Heroic Halfus on 10 man is making sure you have enough aoe threat on the whelps, and that your 2 tanks swap the boss quickly.
We use H Pally, H Priest, and Druid for our setup and we tank everything right in front of the whelp cage. Start with Storm, Nether, and Whelps. As soon as whelps are at 50% you release Time Warden, then you nuke in order Storm > Nether > Time.
We typically will blow through our healer cooldowns in the first 15-25 seconds as they can be the most terrifying. I Divine Sac the Halfus tank on pull, Aura Mastery on the first wave of fire damage, and our Prot Pally will use Divine Guardian on the 2nd burst of fire damage. By the time those first couple seconds are over you should be down to Halfus and 2 drakes. (I have no idea if anyone else pulls the stone drake, but we leave him inactive.)
With 2 tanks and 3 healers, your biggest worry after surviving the initial setup is making sure you have the mana to finish off the fight.
silentk Mar 7th 2011 4:21PM
Forgot to mention we BoP (Hand of Protection now I guess) the first stack of debuffs off each tank. Our prot warrior and I use macros to make sure the buff gets canceled and Halfus is re-taunted, and our Prot Pally has a set of macros for when he casts BoP himself.
Neirin Mar 7th 2011 4:57PM
For 10 man, my guild runs with 1 Disc Priest specced into Atonement, 1 Resto druid (sometimes a holy priest or resto shaman), and 1 Holy Paladin for heals. Our tanks are a paladin and a bear. We have the paladin pick up Storm Rider and the whelps while the druid picks up Nether Scion and Halfus and then drags them over to where the whelps are being aoe'd down so we get cleave damage.
At around the time the drakes get controlled by Halfus, our healers start popping their CDs. PW:B in particular gets thrown over melee because we haven't released Time Warden, so the spalsh damage from fireballs can be intense. We have our Holy Paladin blow his Guardian, Wings, etc to heal the Prot Paladin and our Disc Priest uses Pain Supression on the druid while the 3rd healer just focuses on raid healing as much as possible. Our prot pally uses Divine Sacrifice as well.
Around the time Halfus is positioned properly, the malevolent strikes debuff on the druid is around 4-6 and we have either one of the paladins (usually the prot paladin) BoP them off. The druid has a /cancelaura for BoP macro'd into mangle to ensure Halfus doesn't run around killing people.
After the BoP, tanks blow minor CDs i.e. Barkskin. Since the whelps are under control, the paladin can play defensively and the druid can be healed easily enough that minor damage reduction is all that's necessary.
Once all of the whelps are down or dying we have a ranged dps release Time Warden. The druid will pick up Time Warden while the Prot Paladin will taunt Halfus. The timing tends to work out such that the druid is once again at ~4 stacks of the debuff. Dps now focus on Storm Rider because it will have taken the most cleave damage.
During this transition is where tanks want to blow their major damage reduction CDs like Survival Instincts or Guardian. If a taunt is a little late or something, it's possible for a tank to be gibbed pretty easily unless they have that major damage reduction. During this part of the fight the Holy Paladin focuses on regening mana before the Prot Paladin's stacks get too high. The raid healer will pick up the slack at this time since people can now avoid fireballs.
At ~4 stacks of malevolent strikes, the prot paladin will bubble off his stacks and continue tanking. By this time, the fight should be stabilizing pretty nicely. If there are any tank CDs left, they get used here. Once the paladin once again hits ~4 stacks, the druid taunts and the paladin picks up Nether Scion. Around this time Storm Rider should die and the disc priest can start smite healing with the nice 200% dmg boost.
From this point on, tanks just swap back and forth whenever their stacks rot until all the drakes are down. We don't bother releasing Slate because we tend to have Halfus at ~50% by the time the whelps and first 3 drakes are down and we don't want to deal with drake damage while Halfus does the AoE knockdown.
By the time the first knockdown comes, CDs used at the start of the fight should be starting to come back up. Our prot paladin will Divine Sacrifice during the first knockdown (you can use instants between roars).
For the second roar our disc priest will get as many ranged as possible under a PW:Barrier, Pain Supression a melee and our Holy Paladin will bubble himself and heal up anyone else during the roars.
For the 3rd roar everyone pops personal CDs (iceblock, barkskin, etc). This is the stage where we're most likely to have someone die (i.e. some people don't have real CDs or they aren't up yet), but they can be brezed by the tank druid while he lets his debuff rot.
If we get to a fourth roar our Prot Paladin will bubble (he has to wait this long because it's only just coming off of CD) and interrupt the Shadow Nova. Halfus enrages around the time of the 5th roar for us, which promptly kills everyone.
Neirin Mar 7th 2011 5:03PM
Oh, and a quick note to druid tanks tanking Halfus at the beginning: instead of pre-potting an armor pot, use an agi pot. The tank killer at the beginning of this fight is going to be those Malevolent Strike debuffs, so the value of avoidance is really high.
Matthew Mar 7th 2011 5:05PM
Whats that shiny light thingy in the pick? It almost looks like a mini sun well. LIke, a light well or something!
Weird huh .. . wouldn't it be neat if it liked, healed you, by clicking on it!
gobbles Mar 7th 2011 7:58PM
We do the following for Halfus Heroic 10s
3 Tanks - 2 Feral (one OS tank) and 1 Prot
1-2 Atonement specced Disc priests
Enhance Shaman Focus interupting the Nova with the Tanks
Holy pally
at least one Mage for the interupt after the roar.
Strat.
We release everything except for the Slate dragon(i think that is the name the one that is top left and does the stun on the boss)
OS tank starts on Halfus. To minimize the stacks on him we get the mage to pull and kite the boss to the steps and then the tank taunts (this way he has 5-10sec without debuffs or dmg while the other tanks position.
We have the pally Hand of Protection this tank at approx 6-7 stacks and he removes it with a cancel aura macro. This means he can pretty much solo tank Halfus until the first drake is dead.
Second feral tank (ME!) picks up Nether Scion + Time Warden. Dps zerg down the Scion with Heroism.
Prot warrior picks up Storm Rider and Whelps. We pretty much ignore the Whelps as cleave from our mage/pally/tanks/whatever usually kills them by the time the other drakes die.
Once Scion dies the two feral tanks trade taunts on Halfus and the Time warden to avoid excessive stacking the debuff. Feral tanks are ideal for this due to high dodge (you can dodge the Malevolent Strike)
all tank chain cooldowns and we use raid cooldowns as needed.
Discr priests go into smite mode once first two drakes are dead.
We release the slate dragon one everything else is dead just to make life easier and cause we like big dps numbers :)
sub 50% it really just about making sure the raid is topped up before roar and using cooldowns appropriate.
With all drakes/whelps down halfus takes 500% dmg so you can get him from 60-70% to dead in under a minute. The enrage really wont be an issue even though it looks like you wont get there the first time you kill it.
by far the easiest heroic in my experience.