This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight. It is mostly targeted to DPS who desire to have a short but detailed overview of what is expected of them during that fight.

This guide applies to patch 4.3 of World of Warcraft.

The encounter with Halfus Wyrmbreaker is mostly a gear check (though not a difficult one) for DPS players. In addition to doing damage to various targets, you will be required, in some cases to move out of fire circles and/or interrupt a cast.

1. Overview of the Fight↑top

Halfus is keeping 5 captive drakes. Each of them grants him a different buff or ability. When a drake is released, he debuffs Halfus (as a token of gratitude) in order to mitigate the buff he gives him. Both the buff and the debuff persist through the entire fight. After a drake is released, Halfus binds him to his will, forcing him to attack your raid. You can then either kill the drake or off-tank him. When a drake dies, Halfus receives a stack of Dragon's Vengeance, increasing damage done to him.

The mechanics of the fight revolve around which drakes are available for release. Each week, you will have a combination of 3 drakes active, the other two being inactive (not buffing Halfus) and not releasable. The hard part of the fight will invariably be the beginning, when the drakes are released. Once they are dead, the encounter becomes much easier.

Your raid leader will decide to release the drakes in a certain order and you will need to kill them before killing Halfus.

2. Enemies↑top

2.1. Halfus Wyrmbreaker

The only ability from Halfus which you should be concerned with is Furious Roar, which he always casts 3 times in quick succession and that stuns the raid for 2 seconds. This ability is enabled only after Halfus' health reaches below 50%.

2.2. Proto-Behemoth

Halfus' side-kick, the Proto-Behemoth, has only one ability that you should be concerned with: Fireball, which he casts at a random raid member every two seconds. It deals Fire damage (20,400 to 27,600 in 10-man and 34,000 to 46,000 in 25-man) to everyone standing within 4 yards of the targeted party member. Even though the spot where a Fireball will land is clearly marked with a fire circle, the Fireball travels too fast to be dodged.

2.3. Drakes

On the platform where Halfus is fought, there are 5 captive drakes:

• Nether Scion;
• Slate Dragon;
• Storm Rider;
• 8 Orphaned Emerald Whelps (we count them all as one drake, for the sake of simplicity);
• Time Warden.

3 of the 5 drakes are active. The 3 active drakes change every week. A drake interacts with the fight in three ways:

• An active drake provides a buff to Halfus or his Proto-Behemoth for the entire duration of the fight (i.e., from start to finish). That buff persists through the death of the drake.
• A drake is released when a player right-clicks it, which triggers a 1.5 second cast. When released, a drake gives Halfus or his Proto-Behemoth a debuff (which aims at mitigating the effect of the buff the drake gives), which will last until the fight is over (so, it persists through the death of the drake). A released drake needs to be tanked because it deals melee damage every 1.5 to 2 seconds (about 35k in 10-man and 50k in 25-man).
• When a drake is killed by the raid, it gives Halfus a stack of Dragon's Vengeance. Therefore, when all drakes are dead, Halfus will take 300% increased damage (if you release and kill all 3 drakes, that is).

The health pool of the drakes is 4.15M in 10-man and 15M in 25-man. Regarding the Orphaned Emerald Whelps, since there are 8 of them, each has a health pool equal to one 8th of that of a drake.

2.3.1. Nether Scion

DPS players are not concerned by what that drake does.

2.3.2. Slate Dragon

DPS players are not concerned by what that drake does.

2.3.3. Storm Rider

When active, Storm Rider provides Halfus with Shadow Wrapped, which grants him a new ability: Shadow Nova.

When released, Storm Rider debuffs Halfus with Cyclone Winds. This debuff increases the cast time of Shadow Nova, making it interruptible.

2.3.4. Time Warden

When active, Time Warden grants the Proto-Behemoth a new ability: Fireball Barrage. This ability launches 20 fast-travelling Fireballs over 15 seconds at random raid members, and occurs every 20 to 25 seconds. The gap between each Fireball Barrage is filled by a few Fireballs cast with a 2 second interval.

When released, Time Warden debuffs the Proto-Behemoth with Time Dilation, which decreases the travel speed of the Fireballs to such an extent that they can now easily be dodged, provided that raid members are quick enough to move from the fire circles marking the spots where the Fireballs are to land.

2.3.5. Orphaned Emerald Whelps

DPS players are not concerned by what that drake does.

3. Strategy↑top

The hard part of the encounter is that of the raid leader who must decide in what order to release the drakes, who tanks what, who heals whom, and what must die first. Once this has been decided and your DPS assignments have been given to you, the fight is very straightforward.

Simply kill your targets in the order you were told. Depending on the drake combination, your raid leader should tell you whether to use your cooldowns to burn the first drake released or to keep them for burning down Halfus, once the drakes are dead. Remember that Halfus takes increasing damage (Dragon's Vengeance) as the drakes die.

If Time Warden is active and released (or dead), make sure you move out of the fire circles which indicate incoming Fireballs.

3.1. Dealing with Shadow Nova

When Storm Rider is active and released, Shadow Nova can and should be interrupted. In 25-man, this ability is cast approximately every 7 seconds. In 10-man, in order to account for the lack of interrupters, this ability is cast approximately every 10 seconds.

In 25-man, a Shaman is ideal for interrupting Shdow Nova because Wind Shear, their interrupt, is on a 6 second cooldown. If there is no Shaman in your raid, you might be required to participate in an interruption rotation.

In 10-man, the longer cooldown on Shadow Nova enables many classes (those who have an interrupt with a cooldown of 10 seconds or less) to perform this interruption job: Warriors, Death Knights, Paladins, Rogues, and Druids (in addition to Shamans, of course).

3.2. Dealing with Furious Roar

When Halfus' health reaches below 50%, he gains a new ability: Furious Roar. This is a 3-stage raid-wide stun. It will be cast 3 times in rapid succession, giving you only a fraction of a second of control over your character between each cast. If Storm Rider is active, Halfus will invariably cast Shadow Nova immediately after stunning the raid for the third time. To deal with that, the two most efficient solutions are a Mage using Blink to get out of the stun and interrupt with Counterspell, or a Shaman with an Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond equipped. Other, but less repeatable solutions include casting Hand of Protection on the interrupter, casting Divine Shield for Paladins, using PvP trinkets or the Human racial Every Man for Himself.

4. Heroic Mode↑top

In Heroic Mode, all 5 drakes will be active, forcing your group to release at least 3 of them at the beginning of the fight. Basically, all the enemies have more health and hit harder. As a DPS, the fight is exactly the same as in Normal mode: attack whatever your are assigned to, dodge Fireballs, interrupt Shadow Nova (if asked to), and deal with Furious Roar (if you can). The only exception is that you should use your DPS cooldowns at the beginning of the fight to kill the first drake as soon as possible, relieving the stress from healers and tanks.

5. Tips and Tricks↑top

All the tips and tricks described in this section apply to all difficulties of the fight. In Normal mode, you can certainly defeat the encounter without using them, unlike in Heroic mode, where they are pretty much mandatory.

A Hunter can pull Halfus by misdirecting to his pet, located as far from Halfus as possible, to give time for Nether Scion to apply his debuff to Halfus. This prevents the tank from dealing with Frenzied Assault unmitigated by Nether Blindness.

Once the first drake is dead, Fire Mages and Combat Rogues should start attacking Halfus exclusively. They will deal extra damage, because of Dragon's Vengeance. Fire Mages can then spread high damage DoTs from Halfus to nearby targets (on which they will do the same amount of damage) using Impact. Similarly, Combat Rogues can use Blade Flurry to strike nearby enemies for the amount of damage they deal to Halfus.