Lichborne: Hour of Twilight tips for death knights
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Dec 13th 2011 at 5:00PM
With End Time and Well of Eternity down, the last dungeon we examine is the Hour of Twilight. This dungeon technically takes place in the present day, acting as a precursor to the Dragon Soul raid. Unfortunately, you do have to escort Thrall through the dungeon, but if you turn off the sound on the voice acting and squint, maybe you can pretend it is a cooler shaman like Nobundo or Mylra.
For now, though, what we're most interested in is getting through this dungeon as a death knight, be that tank or DPS. It's a short, sweet dungeon, but there are a couple of tricks and gimmicks you'll want to know to make the fight as smooth as possible. As with the other two dungeons, the loot here will be mostly sidegrades to Firelands stuff, a great way to catch up an undergeared death knight for Dragon Soul. (For a more complete overview of the dungeon from all angles, be sure to check out WoW Insider's guide to Hour of Twilight.)
Trash for Arcurion, the first boss, isn't too annoying -- just some run-of-the-mill elementals. The second pack comes at you from both sides, so you may either want to wrangle the single dude in with Death Grip or have one of your DPS CC it.
Arcurion himself is pretty basic. His biggest annoyance is the whole Chains of Frost thing. You can't really avoid them, though, so you just have to hope your healer is paying attention and dispels them off you. Hand of Frost, on the other hand, can be interrupted, and your healer will thank you if you do it. Arcurion casts it pretty often, though, so you may want to organize an interrupt rotation with others. Otherwise, try to pull him away from the runes on the ground, as those mark where boulders will fall and cause decent damage to anyone hit by them.
Thrall will eventually be entombed in ice. DPSers, you will probably want to peel away from the boss for a couple of seconds to go help free him, unless the other DPS is ranged and has agreed beforehand to do it instead.
Acurion drops a few good death knight pieces. Iceward Cloak has mastery and parry rating, making it just about perfectly itemized for a death knight tank. Similarly, Arcurion Legguards have haste and mastery, making them very well itemized for death knight DPS.
Asira Dawnslayer
As a tank, it's generally your duty to set the pace and keep stuff going, so I am going to remind you talk to Thrall before you mount up and ride to Asira Dawnslayer's position. He's only in Ghost Wolf form and will thus be lagging behind as it is, so you don't want to have to run back and talk to him. Once he's there, he'll start into the Quarry. You'll face a bunch of trash packs, most of which will include at least one shadow priest and one hunter.
Kill the shadow priests first and interrupt their spells if you can (Hungering Shadows is the worst), and for extra points, Death Grip the hunter mob back to you when he Disengages. Thrall will lay down totems that give a nice buff if you're in them. If you can, drag the trash into them. If not, hopefully your ranged DPS will at least take advantage.
Asira herself isn't too difficult for death knights. The big thing you'll want to remember as a tank is to drag her out of smoke clouds ASAP and (if possible) into Thrall's totem circles. Of course, sometimes the two overlap, which is a bummer, but what you gonna do? She does have two things that can trip you up otherwise. First, she has Throw Knife, which can silence casters; I have heard rumors that the knives can be blocked by standing in front of them, so if possible, stay between Asira and your healer. Finally, at low health, she'll put up a Blade Barrier that can only be removed by a high-damage hit. You may want to consider saving a strength-boosting cooldown for that, just in case, but it probably won't be a huge deal.
Asira doesn't actually drop anything specifically enticing for death knights, so consider her a bump in the road on the way to the final boss.
Archbishop Benedictus
Continuing the trend of major Alliance faction leaders and lore figures going insane and trying to destroy the world in the Cataclysm expansion, we have Archbishop Benedictus as the last boss. The trash leading up from him will emerge in small groups from the big black clouds of smoke you see to the sides as Thrall runs down. You can prepare to grab aggro on them by casting your Death and Decay into the cloud just before they disperse and reveal the mobs. The tentacle puts out a beam that can be interrupted, and since it's relatively low-health and stationary, I prefer to kill it first. Also note that one of the mobs does a nasty knockback, so as the tank, try to face toward the downward slope so it knocks you uphill. You'll fly a shorter distance and take less falling damage.
Benedictus himself comes in two flavors, holy and shadow. In both cases, you will deal with spells that act about the same. There's a basic nuke you can interrupt, so if you can, do so. He will also send out up to three orbs at intervals that will rush at people. When they land, they also leave a patch on the ground, so get out of that or pull Benedictus away from them. The final ability to deal with his a massive wave that will sweep across a large portion of the platform where you fight Benedictus. For the first half of the fight, Thrall will create a Water Shell. This will not only protect you from the wave, but also give you a 100% damage buff, so tanks, try to look for it and pull Benedictus to it as soon as it appears. Unfortunately, for the second half, Thrall will be incapacitated, so you'll need to watch for the wave to appear and get to a safe spot.
Benedictus drops quite a few nice things for death knights. Dual wielders may want to grab a couple Treachery's Bites, while DPSers can get some use out of the Rosary of Light's massive strength, even if the critical strike proc is less useful for us. For tanks, Pauldrons of the Dragonblight offer a nice balance of parry and dodge rating, and Veil of Lies is a decent trinket option.
Learn the ropes of endgame play with WoW Insider's DK 101 guide. Make yourself invaluable to your raid group with Mind Freeze and other interrupts, gear up with pre-heroic DPS gear or pre-heroic tank gear, and plot your path to tier 11/valor point DPS gear.Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kylenne Dec 13th 2011 5:14PM
It's not just rumors, Asira's Knives of STFU can most definitely be blocked by melee taking the hit for a caster. Whenever I run this with guildies, we always have caster DPS and healers stand behind the tank. Melee can do it also (and I try to be mindful of this when DPSing on my DK and Pally in pugs) but we find it's just easier to do it that way.
So, tanks, please think of your healers and caster DPS and stop running around like crackheads during this fight unless you have to drag her out of the smoke bombs. Having people zig zag around for no reason is extremely frustrating. :\
Fletcher Dec 13th 2011 5:37PM
Thrall can eat daggers for you too - and I find it pleasing to give him plenty of Knives of STFU, I just wish they *did* make him STFU - but he'll be standing behind Asira, who is standing in front of your tank ... so it's a rare tank who doesn't leave Thrall standing in the Clouds of Bad, making it impossible for casters to stand behind him.
loop_not_defined Dec 13th 2011 5:49PM
I find it helps putting a Star/whatever on myself and a Skull on Asira, so casters can more easily line us up.
vincentmagius Dec 13th 2011 5:54PM
Mainly only saw it between patchs 4.0-4.2 but, it would be nice for tanks to stop PvPing with the boss. Some of us are melee and it's hard to compensate with Billy from Family Circus tanking for you.
As to the Knives attack, can that be blocked by anyone? Usually, there should be one melee dps in the group. Just stay behind them if you're ranged.
paulmewis Dec 13th 2011 6:27PM
Playing this as a melee dps got me a very rude message from the healer displaying to me the damage I'd taken in that fight, despite the healer and lock using me as a meatshield instead of the tank =/. Good thing for the damage breakdown
Tanks probably shouldn't twist the boss round to start as they sometimes do for this one.
DracoSuave Dec 13th 2011 10:22PM
TRUTH.
There are two ways to tank this boss.
1) Run around like an idiot moving side to side while silencing your healers and casters who rely on you for silences.
2) Calmly deal with smokeclouds by backing her out of the smoke cloud, letting casters stay behind you.
'But how do I deal with totems if I'm not running into them!?!'
If you back out slowly, with the casters behind you, then totems will fall at your feet. You will NEVER have to move into a totem because the totems come to you.
Strafing is NEVER necessary for this boss, any tank who tells you otherwise is wrong.
CDave Dec 14th 2011 2:40AM
As a caster, this boss may be the only time I've ever liked having a hunter in the group. They can eat knives without much trouble.
Elzam Dec 13th 2011 5:35PM
Step 1: Go Blood Tanking
Step 2: Get hit
Step 3: ???
Step 4: "You DPS are bad!"
Emophia Dec 13th 2011 5:42PM
Don't you know?
Crit is actually very good for Unholy DKs since the patch fixed out pet not inheriting crit.
It's much better than mastery now, but as good as haste tho.
loop_not_defined Dec 13th 2011 6:00PM
Some more tips:
Arcurion has a mass AoE phase around 20% or so health, which cannot be stopped until either he dies or your group dies. This is capable of wiping groups with low DPS, so it definitely helps to throw up Anti-Magic Shell/Zone and Icebound Fortitude. If this isn't enough, have everybody group up so your healer can AoE heal through it.
Archbishop Benedictus' floating orbs do a hefty chunk of AoE damage when they hit, so spread out before he finishes the cast. If two orbs hit near you, you'll barely survive. If three hit near you, count your blessings if you're not dead. This isn't counting the void zones they leave behind, which can quickly finish any survivors off.
mheatleyadams Dec 13th 2011 6:39PM
Also for Arcurion, you can Dark Simulacrum his Hand of Frost spell; if you time it right, can use it to take out a nice chunk of the Tomb on Thrall.