Halion Shadow Realm Tanking

Our guild, with a few pugs, killed Halion on 25 man mode for the first time last night. It was a tough fight — incoming tank damage in the shadow realm is insane — but in some ways it was easier than expected.

We wiped twice to what I consider silly, easily correctable mistakes. The first time, I called out that I had the boss in the shadow realm a little too late; all the healers had stayed outside waiting for me to say I had the boss, I wasn’t pre-hotted, and the disc priest had d/c’d, meaning I wasn’t bubbled. Rune tap and death strike weren’t enough to cover the healing for those several seconds and I went splat.

The second wipe came at the second transition. One of our healers died in the second phase. Our bear tank tried to use the opportunity to battle rez him, but unfortunately the boss was at the second transition when our bear tank had gone out of bear form to cast the battle rez. Druids don’t tank very well when not in bear form, so he went splat and the attempt was over.

The third attempt, we downed him. I credit that to the fact that pretty much everyone knew the fight from the 10 man version, and in some ways the 25 man version is easier than the 10 man one (for instance, when one person has to drop off a mark of consumption, that’s one out of twenty-five, not one out of ten).

After the raid, one of the pugged warriors wanted to talk to me about the fight. He asked me how I knew when to rotate the dragon for the twilight cutter. This surprised me, since I sort of assumed that everyone who had downed him tanked him in the same way I did, and had figured out all the things I had figured out. Turns out this tank had done it in a completely different way, by kiting the dragon along the outer edge of the fighting area (a way that seemed absurdly difficult). I explained how I did it to him and he seemed to appreciate it.

Last night I got a twitter message from another person — one who I respect a great deal — indicating that he didn’t know of the tricks I use for my strategy either.

I figured then that I should document my Halion shadow realm tanking strategy. There’s a crucial aspect to the fight that I think makes the fight a lot easier that I haven’t seen emphasized elsewhere (not that I’ve looked very hard after I figured it out). Without further ado, here goes:

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Halion’s shadow realm begins when Halion reaches 75%. Slightly before then, you should do whatever you need to do to switch from a dps mode to a tanking mode (for me, that’s activating frost presence). A portal will open up, and you should be the first one through.

Once you are through, you’ll see the dragon in the center of the room.  The initial positioning of the dragon is a tricky thing, because the orientation of the dragon will be different depending on where Halion was in the physical realm when you hit 75%. I think he’s always facing due south, but don’t hold me to that.

At this point, you have to do two things simultaneously: 1) run to the center of the room, engage the dragon and rotate him about sixty degrees to the left without moving him off the central spot where he stands; 2) announce to the raid that you’re in and it’s safe. The first thing you need to do to get him in position for the first cutter, and to point him away from the portal so the raid won’t get breathed on when they enter. The second thing you need to do so that the healers can jump in and heal you quickly, because you’re going to take a lot of damage very quickly.

After you position him, you should watch the sweep of the shadow orbs around the outside of the room. After about ten seconds or so, you should see one sweeping in from the left and moving behind the dragon. If you’ve positioned him properly, the warning for the twilight cutter should be announced just as the orb passes behind the dragon. More likely, the orb will have already passed behind the dragon and you will have to rotate the dragon to the left a bit to properly position him. If you’re unlucky, the orb will be to the left of the dragon and you’ll have to rotate the dragon to the right very quickly or you will go splat to the cutter.

Now, a quick note about the cutter, which is probably the most challenging mechanic in the shadow realm. The shadow orbs take forty seconds to revolve around the fighting area. The twilight cutter will activate for ten seconds, then it will deactivate for twenty seconds. This means that it will move ninety degrees while on, and one hundred eighty degrees when off.

This understanding is absolutely crucial to the fight, so I will put it in big bold letters (I’ll spare you the <FLASH> tag).

The shadow orbs will revolve one hundred and eighty degrees when the cutter is off.

For example, let’s say that when the cutter turns off, orb 1 is located due north, and orb 2 is located due south. When the cutter turns back on, orb 1 will be located due south, and orb 2 will be located due north. The effect of this is that the cutter will turn on in exactly the same position it was when it turned off.  Again, for emphasis:

The twilight cutter will turn on in exactly the same position as it was when the twilight cutter turned off.

So now you can see how to make this realm a whole lot easier for everyone. When the cutter is on, rotate the dragon to keep the cutter in the same position; it should be at about a thirty degree angle to the dragon, such that the beam shoots toward your left shoulder. It should basically bisect the dragon from its front right leg to its back left leg.

When the cutter turns off, stop. You may want to take a very slight rotation back to the right if (as sometimes happens to me) you’ve overrotated the dragon because of a slow reaction time to the cutter turning off.  Fifteen seconds later, you should see the shadow orb sweeping behind the dragon. You can warn in vent at that point that the cutter is about to turn on again. Five more seconds later, the cutter will turn on, and it’s time to rotate the dragon again.

If you do this properly, you can take the twilight cutter mechanic out of the minds of all the other raid members. All they need to know is where to position themselves relative to the dragon; where the safe zones are (front left leg, back right leg), and where the danger zones are (front right leg, back left leg).

Continue that until the dragon is dead. When the twilight cutter activates is a good time to use your small cooldown. Keep that big cooldown handy because the damage will be intense. And take a potion right as the boss enters 50%. You’ll likely need it.

Halion in the shadow realm is a pretty complex fight for healers. You have to watch for marks of consumption. The entire raid is taking AoE damage. The tank is taking about as much damage as she gets during a Festergut fight, but this time there’s no 30% buff to help buffer that. The cognitive demands are pretty high. If you can take the twilight cutter out of the equation for everyone, it makes it much easier for everyone. Then, they can focus on killing the dragon and healing you.

It’s a fight where a good tank can really shine. Because if your raid can learn to trust you implicitly, the shadow realm suddenly becomes a great deal simpler.