Halion Down!

Shy warlock didn't dare get his soul caught on picture

Yeah I know everyone probably has done this already. Or maybe not. Raiding usually gets really slow during the summers. My guild is no exception, and I haven't been able to raid at all for weeks anyway. I hadn't planned to raid yesterday either, but some guildies asked me so nicely that I couldn't say no. And I had a fun time!

I had only watched behind Loves back when he was doing Halion with a pug some weeks ago. He was healing then, as I was yesterday, so I had a general idea as to what to look out for. I also knew my guild had tried Halion on the first night he had been out, and mostly failed on the death beam from hell.

You can read about a general strategy here (thanks wowhead), but I'll give you some other pointers to think about;

- My guild had tried having a general drop area for the Fiery Combustion. Yesterday we just dispelled it as soon as we came to the edge of the fires. It seemed like that tactic worked better, since it's tricky to keep track of a special area in a perfectly round shaped room. Just keep away from others. If you're melee, it's better to just run through the dragon, than back towards range (keep in ranged from healers/dispellers if you can't dispel yourself though). The Combustion does a really big knockback, so be extra careful with it (it's more annoying than Mark of Consumption in Twilight Realm imo).

- Classes that can't dispel themselves from Fiery Combustion are; Death Knights, Warriors and Hunters (Warlocks can only do it with the felhunter). That means that if you're healing you'll have to keep an extra eye out for these classes.

- When switching realms, there is a risk you'll enter in front of Halion (or behind). That means you might be cleaved, or tail swiped first thing inside. If you have 20k+ hp you probably won't die from either, but with extra damage that is inside the Twilight Realm it'll be close. I was cleaved twice (on four tries) yesterday. I never died from it, but some other clothies did. If you can, try to shield everyone with low hp/low armor class just before entering the Twilight Realm. If you can't, just beware that some might really drop in hp.

- The Twilight Cutter (as the death beam is called) will do damage on a slightly bigger area than its graphics show, so keep a good distance. Preferrably at least 10 yards.

- Most people use one healer outside and two healers inside in phase 3. If you're inside, there will be alot of healing everywhere, so don't think you can slack. The tank will take way more damage than any other phase, so the best thing is probably to divide healing amongst yourself. If you're outside, you'll mostly have to think about healing the tank (and dispelling anyone who can't do it themselves). If the dps isn't doing what they should aka keeping the realms at 50% to eachother, there will be -alot- of healing to be done.

If people keep track of their dmg in phase 3, stay out of death beams and have a general awareness (easy to say), this fight isn't that tricky actually. We usually wiped due to people dying from oneshots (and there really only are two, being cleaved and the beam). Good luck!