Headless Horseman


 * "Prepare yourselves, the bells have tolled! Shelter your weak, your young and your old! Each of you shall pay the final sum. Cry for mercy, the reckoning has come!"

During Hallow's End, the Headless Horseman is a summoned elite boss spawned in the Pumpkin Shrine in the middle of the Forlorn Cloister in The Graveyard, an instanced wing of the Scarlet Monastery. Additionally, his shade attacks Horde and Alliance villages at various times throughout the event.

The Horseman was once a Knight of the Silver Hand, but is now cursed. He is of the belief that he is alive, while those who face him are dead. When defeated, he is revealed as Sir Thomas Thomson.

To spawn him, click on the Pumpkin Shrine. While the Horseman can be summoned, killed, and looted as usual in a raid, the instance limit is 5 people.

With the new Dungeon Finder, you can now queue up and be teleported to the fight when a full group is assembled. Everyone gets a loot-filled pumpkin upon completion of the battle.

The Headless Horseman is voiced by Carlos Larkin.

Abilities

 * Cleave: Standard cleave, hits for ~4k damage to plate.
 * Whirlwind: After losing its head, the body will AoE whirlwind for ~2k/sec.
 * Summon Flaming Heads: Several flaming jack-o-lanterns appear and move toward the party, exploding for ~100k damage when they hit a player.
 * Conflagration: An AoE DoT, can only be removed with a PvP Trinket or other similar abilities(Ice Block, Divine Shield, etc.). Ticks for a percentage of your maximum health every second and confuses the target. Lasts ~5 seconds. Feigning Death right before the conflag hits will cancel the fear effect, although the emotes and animations will still proc. You can attack/move as normal. Not sure if this also cleanses the DoT too. Also triggers Conflagrated Weapon.
 * Conflagrated Weapon: Gives the Horseman a chance to do extra fire damage on melee attacks. Allows the use of Fiery Cleave. Lasts 11 seconds.
 * Fiery Cleave: Deals 100k damage to targets in front of the Horseman.
 * Head of the Horseman: Active after the Horseman suffers 99% damage each phase. 63000 Health.
 * Pulsing Pumpkin: Tossed on the ground during phase three. Casts sprout after ~15 seconds. ~10k Health. If a pumpkin lands on a player, they get a disease named Squash Soul which is -18 Spirit for 20 minutes.
 * Pumpkin Fiend: Sprouted from the Pulsing Pumpkins. Deals ~650 base damage and has ~10k Health.

Strategy
The Headless Horseman encounter is a three phase fight.

Phase one
The Horseman makes his entrance and engages whoever lit the candle. The tank should taunt immediately if they did not start the event. Watch out for Cleave and DPS him down.

At 1% the horseman will go immune, toss his head, walk around disoriented, and occasionally use a Whirlwind attack. The Head of the Horseman will become an active target while the body heals to 100%. All DPS should have a target macro for Head of the Horseman. After the party damages the head to about 60%, or the body heals to 100%, the head will rejoin the body and the next phase begins.

Phase two
When the Horseman rejoins with his head, he targets the player with the highest threat. This is the same as phase one except he will randomly cast Conflagration on a random party member (not the tank). You can use a PvP Trinket to remove the Conflagration. Healers and ranged DPS should be alert to the location of both tank and Conflagration target; steer clear of these.

Phase two ends if the head reaches about 30% health, or when the body heals to 100%.

Phase three
The Horseman does not use Conflagration in Phase Three. Eventually he will toss four Pulsing Pumpkins, which sprout Pumpkin Fiends after several seconds, and they will completely heal. The fastest course of action seems to be having the tank stand in the middle of the pumpkins with focus abilities at the ready. The rest of the party continues DPS on the Horseman until his head is tossed. If the party has low DPS, a second or even third wave of Pulsing Pumpkins can be spawned before the head is tossed.

Tanking the Horseman on the steps to the underground area will cause all the spawns to land very close to the boss. This should make it very easy for the tank to pick them all up.

Once the Head of the Horseman dies, the Headless Horseman has been defeated, and the remaining pumpkins will die. If you don't kill the Head of the Horseman before the Horseman heals to 100%, Phase Three will repeat, meaning you have to nuke the Horseman again to get him to toss his head.

Quotes

 * On Start:
 * (Player) says: Horseman rise...
 * (Player) says: Your time is nigh...
 * (Player) says: You felt death once...
 * (Player) says: Now, know demise!
 * say [emits a horrifying guffaw]


 * Lost Head:
 * say


 * Rejoined:
 * yell


 * Conflagration:
 * say
 * emote


 * Sprouting Pumpkins:
 * say


 * Player Death:
 * yell


 * Horseman Death:
 * say
 * A ghostly orb of light leaves the undead form and flies over in front of the ruined tomb behind the Pumpkin Shrine, revealing it to be the ghost of Sir Thomas.

Additional notes
When the Horseman was introduced in 2007, making multiple attempts required resetting the instance each time and creating multiple instance IDs, running up against the 5 instances per hour rule. In 2008, the event was changed so that resetting the instance was no longer required.

Loot
As of 2017, all gear drops - including those in the Loot-Filled Pumpkin - scale to your character level when you acquire them.

The Headless Horseman can also drop any item normally found in a Treat Bag.

Loot-Filled Pumpkin drops

 * The Loot-Filled Pumpkin is a reward given only for the first completion (per day, per character) of the "Headless Horseman" Dungeon Finder instance run. Like the Satchel of Helpful Goods (level 70), this container is placed in the character's inventory (or mail, if inventory is full).
 * The Loot-Filled Pumpkin always has 4-6x Tricky Treat with a possible chance to get a Flimsy Mask and/or one or more of the following:

2016-2017 drops
🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Seal of Ghoulish Glee
 * The Horseman's Ring
 * Band of the Petrified Pumpkin
 * Wicked Witch's Signet
 * The Horseman's Sinister Slicer
 * The Horseman's Horrific Hood

2015 drops
The following items only dropped from the level 100 version of the Headless Horseman (2015), and are listed here for historical purposes only.

🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Seal of Ghoulish Glee
 * The Horseman's Ring
 * Band of the Petrified Pumpkin
 * Wicked Witch's Signet
 * The Horseman's Sinister Slicer
 * The Horseman's Horrific Hood

2012-2014 drops
The following items only dropped from the level 90 version of the Headless Horseman (2012-2014), and are listed here for historical purposes only.

🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Seal of Ghoulish Glee
 * The Horseman's Ring
 * Band of the Petrified Pumpkin
 * Wicked Witch's Signet
 * The Horseman's Sinister Slicer
 * The Horseman's Horrific Hood

2011 drops
The following items only dropped from the level 85 version of the Headless Horseman (2011), and are listed here for historical purposes only.

🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Band of Ghoulish Glee
 * The Horseman's Signet
 * Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin
 * Wicked Witch's Ring
 * The Horseman's Sinister Saber
 * The Horseman's Horrific Helmet

2009-2010 drops
The following items only dropped from the level 80 version of the Headless Horseman (2009–10), and are listed here for historical purposes only.

🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Ring of Ghoulish Glee
 * The Horseman's Seal
 * Wicked Witch's Band
 * The Horseman's Baleful Blade
 * The Horseman's Horrific Helm

2007-2008 drops
The following items only dropped from the level 70 version of the Headless Horseman (2007-8), and are listed here for historical purposes only.

🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Ring of Ghoulish Delight
 * The Horseman's Signet Ring
 * Witches Band
 * The Horseman's Blade
 * The Horseman's Helm

Trivia

 * The description of his LFG event is as such: Defeat the mad Headless Horseman before he burns down every last settlement in Azeroth.
 * Each year he can drop a variant of the sword he is actually seen using.
 * The is a common character in European fairy tales and folklore.
 * The Horseman's steed appears as a mount in Heroes of the Storm. The Horseman appears as a boss mercenary in the Towers of Doom map.