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MobHalfus Wyrmbreaker
Image of Halfus Wyrmbreaker
Race Ettin (Humanoid)
Level ?? Boss
Location Wyrmbreaker's Rookery, Bastion of Twilight
Status Killable

Halfus Wyrmbreaker is the first boss of Bastion of Twilight, a raid instance in the Twilight Highlands. He can be found in the Wyrmbreaker's Rookery, overlooking a lava pit and facing his guardian, the Proto-Behemoth. He is considered a fairly easy fight.

Halfus was beaten along with the other bosses in the first week of Cataclysm's release, but the heroic modes proved more difficult. The world first kills came on Wednesday, 15 December 2010.

Abilities

Halfus

  • Ability warrior decisivestrike Malevolent Strikes — (Buff gained from Slate Dragon) Halfus' attacks wound the target, reducing the effectiveness of any healing on it by 5%. Stacks.
  • Ability warrior rampage Frenzied Assault — (Buff gained from Nether Scion) Increases the caster's attack speed by 100%.
  • Spell shadow shadowfury Shadow Nova — (Buff gained from Storm Rider) Dark magic is unleashed, causing 28500 to 31500 Shadow damage and knocking back all enemies within 50000 yds.
  • Ability warrior battleshout Furious Roar — Halfus roars, inflicting 9500 to 10500 Physical damage and knocking his enemies to the ground.
  • Spell shadow unholyfrenzy Berserk — (After 6 minutes) Increases the caster's attack and movement speeds by 150% and all damage it deals by 500% for until cancelled. Also grants immunity to Taunt effects.

Proto-Behemoth

  • Spell fire meteorstorm Fireball Barrage — (Buff gained from Time Warden) Unleashes a stream of fireballs at random enemy targets.
  • Spell fire burnout Scorching Breath — (Buff gained from Orphaned Emerald Whelps) Breathes flame at enemies in front of the caster, inflicting Fire damage.

Drake Debuffs

  • Inv misc head dragon red Dragon's Vengeance — Halfus takes 50% increased damage from all sources. Stacks to 5. Applied by drake when it is released
  • Spell holy borrowedtime Time Dilation — Warps the flow of time around the target, causing its hostile actions to occur in slow motion. Applied by Time Warden, slows Proto-Behemoth's fireballs
  • Ability druid cyclone Cyclone Winds — Envelops the target in a cyclone, slowing its casting speed by 500%. Applied by Storm Rider on Halfus, slows Shadow Nova
  • Spell arcane massdispel Nether Blindness — Nether fog blinds the target, impairing its vision and reducing its chance to hit, its attack speed, and its damage done by 25%. Applied by Nether Scion on Halfus
  • Inv stone 08 Stone Touch — Afflicts the target, causing them to occasionally become paralyzed for 12 sec. While paralyzed the target cannot move or attack. Applied by Slate Dragon on Halfus
  • Ability creature poison 02 Atrophic Poison — Poisons the target, reducing its damage done by 750. Applied by each Orphaned Emerald Whelp on Proto-Behemoth. Stacks to 8.

Overview

Halfus Wyrmbreaker area

Halfus Wyrmbreaker and his proto-drake

Halfus Wyrmbreaker is a tank and spank fight with some interesting debuff mechanics added in. He has one add, the Proto-Behemoth, that will spit fireballs at raid members and do an AoE flame breath. It is best to ignore this drake and concentrate on killing Halfus, as it has a large health pool and its damage can be either dodged or healed through.

Four friendly drakes and a pack of whelps are imprisoned in the area where Wyrmbreaker is engaged, but only three of them can be engaged. The exact combination of available drakes is randomly selected. When freed, each drake or whelp pack will put a debuff on both the boss and (on heroic mode) the raid. It will initially attack Halfus and give him its debuff, but after a couple seconds, the boss emotes, "Halfus Wyrmbreaker binds the <drake type> to his will!" The drake or pack then becomes mind controlled.

Below 50% he periodically casts unavoidable AoE ability called Furious Roar which is a raid wide aoe and stun which hits for around 10,000 three times.

Drakes

The drake composition of the fight is randomly selected and, like classic Nefarian, getting a difficult combination of adds means you must deal with it until next week.

The Nether Scion
Pre-fight, applies a frenzy buff to Halfus Wyrmbreaker (+100% attack speed). When freed, reduces his attack speed, hit chance and damage done.
The Time Warden
Gives Proto-Behemoth Fireball Barrage ability. When freed slows fireballs' flying speed.
The Slate Dragon
Gives Wyrmbreaker his Malevolent Strikes ability, which causes a stacking healing debuff. When freed periodically stuns Halfus for 12 seconds.
The Orphaned Emerald Whelps
Give Proto-Behemoth Scorching Breath ability. When freed, lower the damage it does.
The Storm Rider
Gives Wyrmbreaker a Shadow Nova ability which deals AoE damage and knocks people back. When freed, reduces his cast speed, so it becomes possible to interrupt.

Strategy

Two tanks are recommended for Halfus Wyrmbreaker, as additional drakes have to be tanked and, if the Slate Dragon is active, his hits apply a debuff that reduces healing received by 4% to a max of 15 (90% of healing negated) and stacks up rather quickly. Halfus Wyrmbreaker is tauntable until his enrage.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker has a 6-minute(?) hard enrage timer.

Strategy will depend on the drake combination of the fight. Usually two drakes will be awaken at the same time and then taken down consecutively. Once they are dead, DPS will switch to the boss. Sometimes, the raid will have to deal with two mechanics:

- If the Slate Dragon is active, the boss will get Malevolent Strikes, a Mortal Strike-like ability. Tanks must switch Halfus every N stacks (usually about 10) of Malevolent Strikes: otherwise, the tank will become unhealable. If the off-tank is busy tanking the drakes, it is handy to use a bubble or Hand of Protection on the main tank on the first 15 stacks; then the tank will retaunt Halfus.

- If the Storm Rider is active, Halfus will cast a Shadow Nova that *must* be interrupted (very hard unless the Storm Rider is released, see below). If it is not interrupted, the raid will take about 30k damage per member and suffer a knockback, making the encounter unhealable. Halfus will almost always Cast shadow nova During the 3rd stun tick of Furious Roar, while it is possible for the raid to eat this nova without too much concern if healers are keeping up it will make your healer more comfortable to interrupt and the best way to do that is to either have a mage blink the last stun and counter spell or it is possible for any other interrupt to be used at the last bit of the cast but is a little more risky.

Choosing which drakes to release can be tricky. The raid should take several considerations into account:

- The Storm Rider should always be released if active. The Shadow Nova will then become interruptable as its cast time rises from 0.25 seconds to 1.5 seconds.

- If the Slate Dragon and the Nether Scion are active, the Nether Scion has to be released. Otherwise, Malevolent Strikes will stack up very quickly.

- If the Time Warden is active, it is usually desirable to free him in order to make the Fireball Barrage slower and easier to dodge, thus avoiding a lot of raid damage.

Combinatorics

Math tells us that there are 10 possible drake combinations ( 5*4*3/(3*2) ). The combinations of drakes appear to be identical for all realms in the US for a given week. Europe has its own combination of drakes for its servers. This was probably done to prevent "raid id shopping" where the raid is disbanded and reformed under different leadership until a favorable drake combination is found.

One article[1] theorizes that the combinations of drakes are deterministic and cyclical. So far no evidence has surfaced that a combination of drakes has repeated in the 8/10 weeks for which he has logs. However, since there is only data for 8 of 10 weeks as of 2011-Jan-31 we have not yet witnessed a full cycle or had any evidence of the repetition of the cycle.

The Cyclical Deterministic theory might be disproved if we witness deviations from the pattern in the next few weeks. If the pattern is upheld through early March then it would be strong evidence that the theory is correct (until a code change by Blizzard).

If the predictions are accurate through Week 10 and then deviate, we can fall back upon a Cyclical Nondeterministic theory wherein the order of drake sets is random, but all combinations of drakes are used in a 10-week sequence. This can be disproved if drake sets repeat within the 10-week sequence, although we must be careful to choose the correct boundary for the 10-week window. The exact 10-week-boundary for a Cyclical Nondeterministic model could take several months to determine.

Cyclical Nondeterministic drake sequences would require more sophisticated server logic than Cyclical Deterministic or Totally Random.

Quotes

Intro
  • Cho'gall yells: Halfus! Hear me! (The Master calls, the Master wants) Protect our secrets, Halfus. Destroy the intruders. (Murder for His glory. Murder for His hunger.)
Aggro
  • Cho'gall will have your heads! ALL OF THEM!
Killing a player
  • The burden of the damned falls upon you!
  • The wyrms will eat well tonight!
Death
  • Cho'gall yells: Flesh and sinew, weak but proud. Dare they part the Master's shroud? They stumble fumble groping blind, Finding fate and chaos intertwined.

Loot

Normal Mode
Heroic Mode

Related achievements

10-Man Normal Videos

Halfus Wyrmbreaker 10 man normal kill by Singularity
Halfus Wyrmbreaker (Bastion of Twilight) Informational Boss Guide by OMFGCATA on YouTube
10 man strategy guide, Covering all the dragons.


Halfus Wyrmbreaker by LoD on YouTube
10 man strategy guide, covering every aspect of the fight.


Halfus Wyrmbreaker by TGN on YouTube
10 Normal strategy and kill 10 Heroic first look


A Look at the 10 Man Fight by The Yogscast on YouTube

25-Man Heroic Videos

[GUIDE] Heroic: Halfus Wyrmbreaker (25H) by Sleepless Knights on YouTube

Patch changes

Cataclysm Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): Added

References

External links

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