I was highly disappointed when I could not personally attend the latest PTR testing phase for the Ruby Sanctum. Was positively thrilled about having an early go and look at the new instance, below Wyrmrest Temple but due to whatever technical complications, I just could not get my character copied. But, at least now I can sit down and watch some of the first videos as they come out of the pipeline and what the encounters are all about.
In truth, I can only find vids about Halion, the Twilight Destroyer but much like Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum, Halion is the primary star of this instance. The minibosses, well… they aren’t all that important. From what I heard, quite a few guilds managed to kill Halion during the PTR testing, which is not at all surprising but keeping in mind that things can still change, including the encounter’s difficulty, as well as the fact that this was normal mode, we should still expect a challenge once the patch is released. If nothing else, the heroic version of the fight should prove interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_S277XtDvY
I will go over what I can about the encounter, or at least, what I think I have been able to learn from it. Please keep in mind that everything you read here is both subject to change and is all primarily speculation, a theoretical exercise summary of the things that I was able to find from various sources.
The fight itself occurs in a circular, confined area, that at least to me seems smaller on the video than what we had for Sartharion, so maximizing the space is important. It seems the best place to tank Halion, is actually at the edge of the area, turned slightly sideways so the frontal cleave and tail swipes aren’t a problem. This frees rest of the area for the raid to maneuver in and there are two things to mainly watch out for.
First is the Meteor Strike. It will target a random player with an effect that looks a lot (or exactly like) the warlock’s Hellfire spell. When that shows up, the target and everyone around him needs to move away before a large ball of fire explodes on top of it. This deals a fixed set of damage and spawns Living Inferno, which in turn is almost exactly like coldflame on the Lord Marrowgar encounter. On the vid, I actually witnessed the Meteor Strike even hit the MT, but either it did not seem to bother him much. Either the damage was trivial, or he popped a CD, or the healers were just awesome. We’ll have to see which one it is.
Second, and this is one that I am not certain what to call it, since the data mining at mmo-champion.com has actually come up with quite a few spells, is the Soul Consumption. What it seems to do is deal periodic shadow damage, until it either fades or is dispelled. As it ticks, it will stack a debuff called Mark of Consumption, which will explode and create a patch of flame on the floor, depending on how many stacks the target had. So I am guessing that dispelling it as soon as possible is important. Just need to make sure the target vacates to a more remote corner of the area before it is dispelled or you will probably wipe the raid when the patch of flame erupts in middle of your raid.
Those are the two abilities that you need to control and I have a feeling that this is not an encounter that relies on high dps, but rather the control of the various elements. From a tank’s point of view, I an offer very little because until you actually tank it (like I had hoped to do) it is difficult to garner information from the fight. It does seem there is a few points of very high damage, mainly from the boss’s breath weapon. Again, data mining has produced a couple of alternatives, the damage ranging between 26k and 50k, during rather short intervals.
Once you have the phase 1 under control, you will need to deal with phases 2 and 3. The second phase, which starts at 75% and Halion enters the Twilight Realm and the raid needs to follow in through two portals. This is where it gets interesting, because you will get an emote warning “The orbiting spheres pulse with dark energy!” When that happens, you see two orbs at the opposite ends of the boss, one front and one at the tail connect with a purple line. I have no details of its effects, but the raid obviously avoids cross it and the tank actually rotates the boss, with the raid constantly moving and staying on the one half of the area.
That goes on until 50% and phase 3 begins, at point which you need to split your raid in two. On the vid, the raid split between melee staying in the Twilight Realm and the ranged dps moving to the physical realm. For this, you need obviously a second tank, and on each side you need to continue to deal with the fight’s mechanics; meteors and fire on the physical world and the orbs in the Twilight Realm. During this, you can see a new UI element, on the top of your screen showing Halion’s corporeality which adjusts, depending which side does more damage and you may need to communicate to keep it in control because the more corporeal he is, the more damage he will take from the physical realm but also deal significant more damage on the physical world (functioning visa versa if there is more damage done in the physical world).
According to mmo-champion.com the extra damage on the tank can go as high as 200% which can probably begin to one shot the tank. If not on normal mode, it certainly will on heroic mode. So if you can deal with the corporeality, which shouldn’t be hard tbh, the fight is essentially yours and you can go home victorious.
As usual, mmo-champion.com (what would we do without those guys?) has come through for us and posted a complete loot table on their site. Some very nice pieces in there. Certainly worth taking a look. Naturally, there will be emblems of frost rewarded for the fight; 3 on 25-man and I assume, 1-2 on 10-man.
That’s all I have really. In the mean while, feel free to drop me a line, comment and add, or correct me, if something caught your eye. Like I said, a lot of this is speculation since I wasn’t actually there. Hope you enjoyed.
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