Halfus Wyrmbreaker

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.

Adventure Guide
''Imbued with unnatural power and stamina by Cho'gall, the ettin Halfus Wyrmbreaker captures dragons for use as fodder in the Twilight's Hammer's rituals. To this end, he has enslaved a behemoth proto-dragon to aid him in hunting down his winged prey.''

Halfus Wyrmbreaker
Each week a random three of Halfus's five captured dragonkin awaken. Each awakened dragonkin empowers Halfus and his enslaved Proto-Behemoth with an ability. On Heroic difficulty, all five dragonkin awaken and empower Halfus and his enslaved Proto-Behemoth with all possible abilities.

Imprisoned Dragonkin
Halfus has imprisoned a Slate Dragon, a Nether Scion, a Storm Rider, a Time Warden, and a pack of Orphaned Emerald Whelps. They surround him on his platform, wearing bonds of servitude. If freed they will each turn on their master and weaken him, but Halfus then dominates the dragonkin and forces them to fight against the players. In Normal Difficulty three random dragonkin awaken each week, while the other two slumber. Only the awakened dragonkin may be freed.
 * Nether Scion
 * Orphaned Emerald Whelp
 * Slate Dragon
 * Storm Rider
 * Time Warden
 * Slate Dragon
 * Storm Rider
 * Time Warden
 * Storm Rider
 * Time Warden
 * Time Warden
 * Time Warden
 * Time Warden

Overview
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 in normal mode 2 are unavailable each week. When freed, each drake or whelp pack will put a debuff on Halfus or his Proto-Behemoth pet. It will initially attack Halfus and give him its debuff, but after a couple seconds, the boss emotes, "Halfus Wyrmbreaker binds the to his will!" The drake or pack then becomes mind controlled and must be tanked (and possibly killed depending on your tactic for the week).

Below 50% he periodically casts an 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 selected per week and, like classic Nefarian, getting a difficult combination of adds might mean you have to wait until next week.

A drake being active means that Halfus has a buff that that drake can counter to some degree when it is released. A drake being unavailable (which only happens in Normal mode) means Halfus simply does not have that ability needing to be countered for the week. In heroic mode, Halfus has all abilities active, and you need to choose which abilities you want to counter (which drakes to release, and in which order).


 * 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, lowers 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.

Solo strategy
In ten-player mode, it's generally not worth it to deal with the mechanics of the encounter. Just blow Halfus up.

Related achievements

 * The Bastion of Twilight (achievement)
 * The Bastion of Twilight Guild Run
 * Heroic: Halfus Wyrmbreaker
 * The Only Escape

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * Unused quotes
 * Beasts! Strike at our enemies.
 * Dragons to my side!
 * Drakes! Your master calls for you!
 * Whelps! Wash over our enemies as a swarm of death!