Halfus is keeping 5 captive drakes. Each of them grants him a different buff or ability. When a drake is released, he debuffs Halfus in order to mitigate the buff he gives him. Both the buff and the debuff persist through the entire fight. After a drake is released, Halfus binds him to his will, forcing him to attack your raid. You can then either kill the drake or off-tank him. When a drake dies, Halfus receives a stack of Dragon's Vengeance, increasing damage done to him.

The mechanics of the fight revolve around which drakes are available for release. Each week, you will have a combination of 3 drakes active, the other two being inactive and not releasable. The hard part of the fight will invariably be the beginning, when the drakes are released. Once they are dead, the encounter becomes much easier.

The idea is to release the drakes in a certain order and that order sometimes depends on your raid setup.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker

A melee attack, which hits for about 15k damage every 1.6s.

Furious Roar, which Halfus always casts 3 times in quick succession and that stuns the raid for 2s. This ability is enabled only after Halfus health reaches below 50%.

Proto-Behemoth

Fireball, which he casts at a random raid member every 2s. It deals fire damage to everyone standing within 4 yards of the targeted party member. Even though the spot where a Fireball will land is clearly marked with a fire circle, the Fireball travels too fast to be dodged.

Drakes

3 of the 5 drakes are active. The 3 active drakes change every week. A drake interacts with the fight in three ways:

An active drake provides a buff to Halfus or his Proto-Behemoth for the entire duration of the fight. That buff persists through the death of the drake.

A drake is released when a player right-clicks it, which triggers a 1.5s cast. When released, a drake gives Halfus or his Proto-Behemoth a debuff, which will last until the fight is over. A released drake needs to be tanked because it deals melee damage every 1.5 to 2s.

When a drake is killed by the raid, it gives Halfus a stack of Dragon's Vengeance. Therefore, when all drakes are dead, Halfus will take 300% increased damage.

The health pool of the drakes is 3.3M in 10-man and 12M in 25-man. Regarding the Orphaned Emerald Whelps, since there are 8 of them, each has a health pool equal to 1/8th of that of a drake.

Nether Scion

When active, Nether Scion provides Halfus with Frenzied Assault, which increases his attack speed.

When released, Nether Scion debuffs Halfus with Nether Blindness, which more than mitigates the effects of Frenzied Assault.

Slate Dragon

When active, Slate Dragon provides Halfus with Malevolent Strikes. This enables Halfus to apply Malevolent Strikes, a healing debuff, on his target, whenever he performs a melee attack that deals damage. Therefore, Halfus will not apply Malevolent Strikes following a melee attack which was dodged, parried or missed. Nether Blindness from the Nether Scion causes 25% of the application of Malevolent Strikes to fail, in addition to causing 25% of his melee attacks to fail.

When released, Slate Dragon debuffs Halfus with Stone Touch. This debuff stuns Halfus for 12s approximately every 30s, which makes it easier for the tanks to drop their stacks of the healing debuff, or for the healers to top off everyone.

Storm Rider

When active, Storm Rider provides Halfus with Shadow Wrapped, which grants him a new ability: Shadow Nova.

When released, Storm Rider debuffs Halfus with Cyclone Winds. This debuff increases the cast time of Shadow Nova, making it interruptible.

Time Warden

When active, Time Warden grants the Proto-Behemoth a new ability: Fireball Barrage. This ability launches 20 fast-traveling Fireballs over 15s at random raid members, and occurs every 20 to 25s. The gap between each Fireball Barrage is filled by a few Fireballs cast with a 2s interval.

When released, Time Warden debuffs the Proto-Behemoth with Time Dilation, which decreases the travel speed of the Fireballs to such an extent that they can now easily be dodged, provided that raid members are quick enough to move from the fire circles marking the spots where the Fireballs are to land.

Orphaned Emerald Whelps

When active, the Orphaned Emerald Whelps grant the Proto-Behemoth a new ability: Scorching Breath. This ability casts a breath attack that deals unavoidable raid-wide damage every second for 8s. It occurs approximately every 20 to 30s, alternating with Fireballs. If Time Warden is also active, Scorching Breath alternates with Fireball Barrage and a few regular Fireballs.

When released, the Orphaned Emerald Whelps debuff the Proto-Behemoth with Atrophic Poison. This will rapidly stack 8 times, bringing a reduction of 6k damage on every ability the Proto-Behemoth casts at the raid.

Before starting the fight, you need to establish the order in which the active drakes will be released, and how these drakes will be dealt with.

Most of the times, you will need to kill only two of the drakes while leaving the third drake alive or unreleased. This decision stems from the 200% increased damage that Halfus will already be taking when two drakes will have been killed. At that point, it is more efficient to just burn Halfus rather than waste precious time killing the third drake. Roughly speaking, you would need to deal 3.3M damage in 10-man and 12M in 25-man to kill the third drake when you could be dealing Halfus three times more. Sometimes, however, you will want to benefit from the buff given by the third drake, so you can simply release it and have it off-tanked until the end of the fight.

Some combinations, however, require you to free all three drakes.

Among the 10 possible combinations, 6 (those with Slate Dragon) require tank swapping to deal with stacks of Malevolent Strikes building up every time Halfus lands a damaging melee attack. Since it takes 30s for that debuff to wear off, the main tank and the off-tank need to take turns tanking Halfus to enable the stacks of the other tank to drop. This should represent about 8 to 10 stacks depending on your tanks avoidance stats.

Having three tanks in your raid makes tank swapping easier, especially if 2 drakes need to be released, as each tank can take a target. Also, their respective amount of stacks of Malevolent Strikes will be lower. While 25-man raids will almost always have a third tank available, this is not always the case of 10-man raids. For a third tank, always prefer a Feral Druid or a Death Knight, if you can afford the luxury of choosing, as they will be able to deal a decent amount of damage to Halfus when their tanking services are no longer required.

Your entire strategy for the encounter with Halfus Wyrmbreaker is centered around dealing with the drakes. Once they are dead, the encounter becomes a tank and spank fight.

Regarding positioning, you need your raid to be spread out so as to prevent Fireballs from dealing damage to more than one raid member. Also, if Time Warden (meaning that Fireballs can be avoided) is up, spreading out will cause only one raid member to move away from the Fireball targeting them.

DPS can and should help releasing the drakes. They do not become hostile right away but after a few seconds, when Halfus binds them to his will, giving the tanks enough preparation to taunt the drakes.

When Halfus health reaches below 50%, he gains a new ability: Furious Roar. This is a 3-stage raid-wide stun. It will be cast 3 times in rapid succession, giving you only a fraction of a second of control over your character between each cast. If Storm Rider is active, Halfus will invariably cast Shadow Nova immediately after stunning the raid for the third time. To deal with that, the most efficient solution is a Mage using Blink to get out of the stun and interrupt with Counterspell.

The mechanics of the fight and the timing of the abilities remain the same in Heroic Mode. The main difference is that all 5 drakes are active and need to be released.

Having all the drakes active means that you have to release Nether Scion and Storm Rider. In addition to that, you need to reduce raid damage and therefore release Time Warden or the Orphaned Emerald Whelps, or both. You can release Slate Dragon later. There is no set strategy here, it all depends on the ability of a raid leader to figure out how many drakes to release at the start for their raid setup.

Whatever strategy you decide to employ, the beginning of the fight will be crucial. There will be massive tank or raid-wide damage, depending on whether you decide to release both Time Warden and the Whelps, or only Time Warden or the Whelps. You should typically burn all cooldowns to ensure that your raid survives and that the drakes are killed as fast as possible.

Valiona and Theralion are two dragons that your raid will fight during the encounter. There are two phases: Valiona Phase, during which Valiona is on the ground and Theralion is in the air, and Theralion Phase, during which Theralion is on the ground, and Valiona is in the air. These two phases alternate until Valiona and Theralion, which have a shared health pool and can both be damaged simultaneously, die or enrage. The first phase will always be a Valiona Phase, regardless of which dragon you choose to attack to start the encounter.

The alternation between the phases is time-dependant and as such can not be influenced by the raid actions. Valiona Phase lasts 100s while Theralion Phase lasts 140s.

Only the dragon currently on the ground requires tanking, while the flying dragon will cast various spells at the raid.

Twilight Realm

The Twilight Realm is a parallel dimension of the room where the encounter occurs. Players can be transported there after failing to dodge one of two abilities: Dazzling Destruction and Twilight Flames. These abilities are the only ones that can also deal damage to players inside the Twilight Realm, who stand in their area of effect. Players inside the realm need to look for exit portals, run to them, and click them to be transported back into the Normal Realm.

Moving shadow orbs are scattered throughout the Twilight Realm and need to be avoided because they deal heavy shadow damage.

Valiona Phase

During this phase, your raid will need to remain spread out to avoid AoE damage from Theralion, while sometimes stacking or moving to deal with Valiona's abilities.

Valiona's melee attack occurs every 2s and does approximately 25k damage in 10-man and 35-40k in 25-man difficulty.

Blackout - two or three times during the Valiona Phase, she will place a debuff on a random raid member. The debuff absorbs a certain amount of healing, and can, ideally, be dispelled. It lasts 20s. When the debuff wears off of the target, whether through reaching its absorption cap, being dispelled or simply running out, it will deal a large amount of shadow damage to all players around the affected player, split among them. The ability has a 40s cooldown.

Devouring Flames - twice during the Valiona Phase, she will face a random direction and begin casting a breath attack. After 2.5s, she will breathe shadow damage in a large area in front of her, dealing massive damage to anyone being hit. The damage is lower the further you are from Valiona.

Twilight Blast - every 2s during the entire Valiona Phase, Theralion will cast a shadow blast to a random raid member, dealing damage to that player and to everyone within 8 yards. Twilight Blast cannot be cast while Dazzling Destruction is being cast.

Dazzling Destruction - towards the end of the Valiona Phase, Theralion will cast this ability 3 times in a row. The ability has a 4s cast during which two pink void zones on the ground mark the locations where the ability will hit. When the cast is over, Theralion will send two shadow balls to the ground, one on each void zone. When a shadow ball touches the ground, it deals damage to anyone standing inside the void zone, also sending them inside the Twilight Realm.

Because Twilight Blast will indifferently target players at melee or at range, the raid should remain spread out around Valiona. The melee DPS can be in groups of two if they cannot spread properly.

When Valiona casts Blackout on a random raid member, everyone needs to stack a designated position, typically behind Valiona, in order to soak the damage.

After Blackout, the raid should spread again and prepare for Devouring Flames, which Valiona will cast a few seconds later. Devouring Flames is a very wide (almost 180 degrees) conic breath attack which exhales shadow flames. The area that will be covered by the breath cannot be known in advance as Valiona will simply turn to face a random direction before starting the cast. As soon as she starts casting, everyone in the direction of the breath should try and move out of the targeted area. Players that are too far into the area, should move even further from Valiona so as to reduce the amount of damage taken.

85s into Valiona Phase (so 15s before the end of the phase), Theralion will cast Dazzling Destruction 3 times, each time placing two rather large void zones on the ground. Players have about 5s to move out of them before being sent into the Twilight Realm and damaged. Dazzling Destruction is invisible to players in the Twilight Realm but it still damages them. Therefore, these players need to quickly transfer back to the Normal Realm, reducing the chance to get hit by the next Dazzling Destruction.

During this phase, Theralion stops casting Twilight Blast, and Valiona will occasionally cast a Blackout.

As the last void zones from Dazzling Destruction disappear, Valiona flies up while Theralion lands, which starts the Theralion Phase.

Theralion Phase

The Theralion Phase, will require precise positioning and movement from your raid, in order to deal with the various abilities the two dragons will throw at you.

Theralion's melee attack occurs every 2s and does approximately 25k damage in 10-man and 35-40k in 25-man difficulty.

Engulfing Magic - 4 times during the Theralion Phase, he will place a debuff on one random caster or healer (including hunters) in 10-man, and two random casters or healers (including hunters) in 25-man, lasting 20s. For the duration of the debuff, the target will do 100% increased damage and healing, but all damage and healing done by them will be dealt to players within 10 yards of them as shadow damage. The ability has a 35s cooldown.

Fabulous Flames - every 15s, Theralion will cast this ability on random raid members during this phase. He will target players at range in preference over players in melee range, provided that there are enough players at range. The ability will leave a large void zone on the ground, around the player's location, dealing large amounts of damage every second to anyone standing inside it.

Twilight Meteorite - for the greater part of the Theralion Phase, Valiona will cast this ability on random raid members, every 6s. The ability places a debuff on the target, which after 5s will hit the player and a large amount of shadow damage will be split between that player and anyone else within 6 yards. She stops using this ability 95s into the Theralion Phase.

Twilight Flames - towards the end of the Theralion Phase, once she has stopped casting Twilight Meteorite, Valiona will channel a deep breath, and then proceed to covering a third of the room in damaging flames. She will do this three times, and which third of the room she will target is indicated by her positioning. While the breath itself deals no damage, the fire left on the floor deals moderate damage and sends whoever stands in it in the Twilight Realm, with the danger of landing on an orb, which will explode and deal a lot of damage.

Twilight Meteorite is to be soaked by the melee group. If a ranged player is targeted by this ability, they have 5s to move to the melee group.

Every 15s, a ranged member will be targeted by Fabulous Flames which creates a damaging shadow zone on the ground. Anyone inside the radius affected by the shadow zone simply need to move out of it. It is possible for this ability to force the melee group or the tank to move, if the targeted ranged player is standing too close to Theralion.

When a ranged DPS or a healer is affected by Engulfing Magic, they should start by moving 10 yards away any nearby raid member before they can continue attacking or healing. DPS players affected by Engulfing Magic should use available cooldowns. Note that when not attacking or not healing, a player affected by Engulfing Magic will not damage nearby raid members. Players that have active DoTs will damage surrounding players even if they are not casting and should move away promptly.

95s into Theralion Phase (so 45s before the end of the phase), Valiona will take a deep breath and cover the third of the room over which she is about to fly over with Twilight Flames. She does that three times in a row, with a 15s interval. At this point, Valiona will stop casting Twilight Meteorite, which means that the melee group is no longer required to stack.

The flames deal damage to players standing in them, also sending them in the Twilight Realm, which makes it mandatory to properly avoid them.

Avoiding the flames is really straightforward. Valiona will start by positioning herself in line with the portion of the room she will cover in flames. Simply have someone assigned to watching Valiona for the last 45s of the phase and shout entrance, middle, or exit, depending on what area Valiona is going to fly over.

After her third passage, Valiona will fly back to the center of the room and land while Theralion will take off, which marks the beginning of another Valiona Phase.

Every 15s, a Twilight Sentry will spawn in the Twilight Realm. Each sentry continuously channels Rift Blast. Every 3s, Rift Blast will damage a random raid member, regardless of whether that player is in the Twilight Realm or in the Normal Realm.

Twilight Shift is a stacking debuff which Valiona and Theralion will place on the tank currently tanking them. This ability has a 20s cooldown and because of all the other abilities Valiona and Theralion cast, the delay between two successive applications will sometimes be much greater than 20s. On reaching 5 stacks, the debuff will wear out and trigger Shifting Reality, sending the tank and any other raid member within 6 yards into the Twilight Realm, and damaging these raid members as well as enemies within the Twilight Realm.

Engulfing Magic now targets 2 players in 10-man and 3 in 25-man difficulty.

DPS players and healers need to go in the Twilight Realm from time to time to kill Twilight Sentries. For this reason, a tank is often required to announce that their stacks of Twilight Shift have reached 4, so that, if needed, some designated DPS players and healers can come and stack on them in order to be sent to the Twilight Realm at the application of the 5th stack.

Because the increasing number of Twilight Sentries in the Twilight Realm will end up wiping the raid with Rift Blast, it is necessary to regularly go to the Twilight Realm and kill some sentries.

Players inside the Twilight Realm receive a tick of Twilight Zone every 2s. In addition to dealing damage, these ticks stack a debuff which increases shadow damage taken. These stacks limit the time a player can stay inside the realm. Also, it takes 2m for the stacks to drop, which prevents players from returning to the Twilight Realm as soon as they have been healed to full in the Normal Realm.

Regarding how long players can stand in the realm, it depends on the role. Healers should typically stay until 20 stacks maximum, leaving a HoT on the players inside. DPS can stay until 25 stacks maximum, while the HoT they have received is still active. It is advised to start looking for an exit portal 5 stacks before the aimed limit.

Inside the Twilight Realm, it is imperative to avoid the moving white orbs that are spread throughout the area. They deal considerable damage and will instantly kill raid members who have stacks of Twilight Zone. There are inoffensive units called Twilight Fiends, which roam around the room and should be ignored.

Outside the Twilight Realm, players with high stacks of Twilight Zone should be given special attention by the healers because they will be taking additional damage until the stacks wear out. These players should also be especially wary of Twilight Flames. Being hit by them will send them back to the Twilight Realm, where they will have a hard time reaching an exit portal before dying. Worse, their position into the Normal Realm, at the moment they are hit by Twilight Flames, can coincide with that of an orb in the Twilight Realm, the explosion of which will kill them as soon as they are shifted.

When the boss health reaches 20%, everyone inside the Twilight Realm, should exit and DPS whichever dragon is on the ground.

The Ascendant Council is a three phase council fight. During the first phase, you fight Feludius and Ignacious - water and fire ascendants. During the second phase, you face Arion and Terrastra - air and earth ascendants respectively. During the last phase, you must defeat all four, as they merge together into an Elementium Monstrosity.

Both Phases 1 and 2 end, when one of the ascendants present reaches 25% health. Since the Elementium Monstrosity's health is the combined health of all four ascendants, you will want to bring all four to about 25%.

Phase 1

Feludius

Feludius is a water ascendant, a counterpart to Ignacious - his partner during Phase 1. You will want your ranged DPS on him.

Hydro Lance is a spell that needs to be interrupted. It does a lot of damage if it's not.

Water Bomb will make Feludius throw water bombs at random locations around the room. If you get hit by this, you will become Waterlogged. You need to remove this debuff asap by walking through the fire trail left by Ignacious.

Feludius will occasionally debuff one of your raiders with Heart of Ice. Have that person run quickly to the melee pile, giving them extra damage against Ignacious. Have a designated healer dispel it after that.

Glaciate is Feludius big move in this phase. It will instantly kill any players with Waterlogged and will have similar effect to all players close to him. To counter it, run away from him at the beginning of the cast (tank included) and get rid of your Waterlogged quickly. Also, make sure to interrupt the Hydrolance that tends to follow.

Ignacious

Ignacious is a fire ascendant, a counterpart to Feludius - his partner during Phase 1. You will want your melee DPS on him.

Flame Torrent will be channeled in front of Ignacious. It does quite a bit of damage, so it's recommended for your tank to use a minor defensive cooldown on as many Flame Torrents as possible. Note that while Ignacious will follow his target if you run around him, he will remain stationary while casting - so you can, technically, outrange the spell and avoid some of the damage.

Inferno Leap and Inferno Rush is a combination that will make Ignacious jump to a random ranged member, do damage to them, then charge back to his tank, leaving a trail of fire behind him. Use the trail of fire to remove the Waterlogged debuff Feludius Water Bombs will put on you.

Ignacious will occasionally debuff one of your raiders with Burning Blood. Have them run to the ranged "pile", in order to grant them extra damage against Feludius. Make sure you dispel the Burning Blood debuff after that.

Aegis of Flame and Rising Flames are Ignacious big move. First, he will put the Aegis of Flame shield, and then he will begin channeling Rising Flames. The former will make him immune to interrupt (until the shield is broken through damage), and the latter will continuously do AoE to the entire raid, increasing his damage with each successful tick. To counter this, you need to have all your DPS switch to Ignacious as he is casting the shield - or even better, 3-5s before he does it, burn through it asap and then interrupt Rising Flames. If done right, you shouldn't get more than 2-3 ticks.

With all DPS switching to burn down Ignacius shield, it is most likely that Feludius HP will be higher. Wait until both health pools are equalized before pushing one to 25%.

Phase 2

Arion

Arion is an air ascendant, a counterpart to Terrastra - his partner during Phase 2. You will want your ranged DPS on him.

Arion will put Lightning Rod on a random player several times during the encounter. This player needs to run as far away from other people as humanly possible. The reason being, Arion will shoot a chain lightning at that player after a few seconds. The chain lightning has a long jump range and does more and more damage with each jump. After one chain lightning goes out, the afflicted player is safe to move back into the raid.

Disperse and Lightning Blast are a combo Arion will do every so often during the fight. He will teleport to a random location in the room - preferring the walls, it seems, and start casting Lightning Blast right after that. If you can get an interrupter close to him in time to prevent the spell, do so. If not, have your tank pop a defensive cooldown, not because the damage is fatal, but because that's the only thing a cooldown should be used for in this phase.

Arion will Call Winds occasionally. This will summon slowly moving tornadoes somewhere in the room. All players need to "tap" the Tornado in order to receive the Swirling Winds debuff needed to avoid Terrastra's ultimate - Quake, which will always be the first ultimate cast in Phase 2.

Thundershock is Arian's ultimate. To avoid the massive damage caused by this spell, "tap" one of Terrastra Gravity Wells in order to gain its Grounded debuff.

Terrastra

Terrastra is an earth ascendant, a counterpart to Arion - her partner during Phase 2. You will want your melee DPS on her.

Terrastra will cast Eruption frequently in this phase. Rock Spikes will appear around her - avoid them in order to avoid the damage that will follow them soon.

Harden Skin is a shield Terrastra will put on herself. It has a 1s cast time, so if you can interrupt it, do so - but it's not easy. If you fail to interrupt the cast, the ascendant lord will gain 100% extra damage for 30s, as well as 50% damage absorption. If you break the shield through damage, Terrastra will take all of the absorbed damage at once (which is about 10% of her health). Interrupting the shield and burning through it turns out to be about the same amount of damage, so it's up to you. It is, however, recommended that you burst the last shield, as it can bring the boss to below 25%, which will make the last phase easier.

Terrastra will summon stationary Gravity Well throughout this phase. They and their Grounded debuff work similarly to Arion's tornadoes - you need to "tap" one of those some time before a Thundershock.

Quake is Terrastra's ultimate. To avoid the massive damage caused by this spell, "tap" one of Arion's tornadoes in order gain its Swirling Winds debuff.

Phase 3

Elementium Monstrosity

The Elementium Monstrosity is a combination of all the previous ascendants - it uses one ability of each elemental type.

Cryogenic Aura will drop patches of Liquid Ice underneath the Monstrosity. The longer the creature stands in them, the wider they will become - and the more damage they will do. Kite the boss out of them and along the edges of the room.

Lava Seed will drop Flare like fire balls around the room. Avoiding them should be simple enough.

Gravity Crush will imprison a few players in a gravity prison, doing a total of 96% of their total health as damage over its duration of 6s. Players trapped by this will take a lot of falling damage as well, so make sure you heal them.

Electric Instability is a chain lightning like spell the Elementium Monstrosity casts passively. It does more damage the longer the fight goes, which adds a soft enrage timer to the encounter.

As an encounter, Cho'gall relies on Corrupted Blood as its key mechanic throughout its duration. Players will gain corruption throughout the fight and should try avoiding being corrupted as much as possible. As the corruption level of a player rises, they will gain new debuffs. When they hit 25% corruption, they are inflicted with Corruption: Accelerated (dispel as soon as possible). At 50% corruption, Corruption: Sickness (turn away from raid members to avoid damaging them). At 75% corruption, Corruption: Malformation. Finally, at 100% corruption players receive Corruption: Absolute and will ultimately die.

Phase 1

Tank Cho'gall by his throne with two tanks. Have ranged and melee group up. He will occasionally cast Conversion, if it is not removed within 3s of casting, it will buff him with Twisted Devotion. Conversion effectively mind controls players, making them worship Cho'gall, and needs to be interrupted as quickly as possible. This is why standing in groups is best. You can use Psychic Scream or other AoE interrupts to quickly break Conversion. Have Mages assigned to Counterspell anyone who is mind controlled away from the raid.

Have tanks taunt the boss of one another when inflicted with Fury of Cho'gall. Cho'gall will alternate between casting Shadow's Orders (heavy healing on raid) and Flame's Orders (fire puddles spawned at random).

Cho'gall will summon a Corrupting Adherent which will cast Corrupting Crash and Depravity. Have the off tank drag these back to the stairs for the ranged to DPS. Make sure the raid avoids being hit with either spell as it will increase Corruption. The raid should run away each Corrupting Crash then collapse back together so that Conversion can still be handled easily with AoE interrupts. For Depravity, have assigned interrupters to the mob.

30s after Cho'gall summons a Corrupting Adherent, he will cast Fester Blood and spawn Blood of the Old God. More will spawn each time. Use snares and stuns to keep these from reaching the raid and have ranged DPS AoE them down then turn back to attacking Cho'gall. If Blood of the Old God reaches the raid, players will gain Corruption.

Phase 2

At 25%, Phase 2 begins. This part of the phase is a DPS race, you must kill Cho'gall before you and your raid members become corrupted. If a Corrupting Adherent is alive, it will despawn at this point. Split into smaller groups while keeping him tanked in the same place with the same tank switches and healing calls used in Phase 1.

In this phase, Cho'gall will use Darkened Creations. These adds will spawn in a circle around him. Interrupt, stun and kill these before they have a chance to cast Debilitating Beam on raid members. Move Cho'gall onto his throne stairs to force the Darkened Creations to spawn closer together. Have DPS burn these adds then refocus to the boss after they are all dead. As corruption rises, raid damage will rise and the earlier debuffs mentioned will start appearing so be on the lookout for them.

Heroic mode makes two Corrupting Adherents spawn at the same time instead of one which requires another tank. This also means there will be 10 blood instead of 5 to slow, snare and kill.

When Cho'gall alternates between casting Shadow's Orders (heavy healing on raid) and Flame's Orders (heavy healing on tank), he will also spawn a Shadow Lord or a Fire Elemental respectively. These must be damaged as they will each put a buff on Cho'gall that continues to stack, Empowered Shadows and Flaming Destruction.

In Phase 2, when Cho'gall uses Darkened Creations, Spiked Tentacle will also spawn. They cannot be efficiently killed, instead, they serve to add extra raid damage to watch out for.

Sinestra is an unforgiving, brutal encounter with high DPS requirements and intense raid damage. For this encounter you will use two tanks: one main tank and one off tank, which will handle the adds that spawn.

Phase 1

As you pull Sinestra, she will use Call Flames to conjure flames that will cover the ground to block off the path to her eggs.

Shortly after combat has been engaged, Sinestra will afflict one raid member with Wrack. This is a nasty debuff that deals periodic shadow damage that increases over time. Wrack lasts for 1m, but it will kill the player it's on long before that so it must be removed. However, when it's dispelled from a player, it jumps to two additional targets in order to punish raids for premature dispels. It expires after a minute no matter how many targets it's on and then gets recast on the raid. Assign one main dispeller to remove Wrack from a target after approximately 10s after its application. Assigning a secondary dispeller (a healer) is also a good idea for the latter half of the minute duration.

Sinestra's primary ability is Flame Breath. She casts it every 20s and it afflicts everyone in the room. Note that while it still does a lot of damage, it does a lot less in Phase 1 as she has a debuff which cuts her damage.

Every 30s, she will spawn two Twilight Orbs on a random raid member. After a couple of seconds, they will begin to Shadow Pulse, damaging anyone within 10 yards. After they start pulsing, they will fire beams between them called Twilight Slicer. They're an instant death to anyone who strays within them so a general rule of thumb is to move away from eggs the second they spawn.

Every 50s, 5 Twilight Whelps will join the fray. They will aggro random targets and cast Twilight Spit on them. They should be picked up by the off tank and healers should be close to this tank so they can easily pick up spawning whelps.

Phase 2

When Sinestra's health reaches 30%, Phase 2 begins. The raid should move towards the back of the room at this time, bringing the Twilight Whelps with them to AoE them down. Sinestra will start the phase by healing herself to full and casting Mana Barrier on herself. This will essentially make her completely immune to damage. She will then begin to cast Twilight Extinction. A friendly NPC, Calen, will cast Fiery Barrier to negate this spell in the back of the room and the raid must be within the barrier to survive by the time Sinestra's cast finishes.

Ranged DPS should stay on Sinestra to bring down the Twilight Carapace buff on two Pulsing Twilight Eggs, after enough damage is done to Sinestra, the two eggs will become attackable. Meanwhile, melee should focus on killing the Twilight Whelps that are up from Phase 1. Whenever a whelp dies, it leaves a Twilight Essence which causes Whelps that die in that area to respawn (it's essentially a void zone).

After casting the barrier, Calen will be afflicted by Pyrrhic Focus which restores his mana at the cost of his health throughout the phase, assign a healer to him to keep him up.

After she's finished casting Twilight Extinction, the main tank should prepare to pick up Twilight Drake in the middle of the room, they will do Twilight Breath so make sure they are facing away from the raid. Melee should stay back with the off tank and hopefully dead whelps, preparing to deal with Twilight Spitecaller as they spawn and DPS the drakes when they have time. Ranged DPS steal the show here, they must attack the eggs when Twilight Carapace is removed from them and should be split into two equal groups. They should switch back to Sinestra if unsuccessful in killing the eggs to work on removing the debuff again.

Phase 3 will start once both Pulsing Twilight Eggs are dead. As she transitions into Phase 3, clean up the remaining adds.

Phase 3

All members of the raid will receive Essence of the Red to allow the raid to be healed through the damage. Despite the buff, it will be very hectic.

Whelps should be picked up and tanked in the back of the room this time. In order to keep them from resurrecting each other with their deaths, each Twilight Whelp should be pulled out of the pile at a low percentage and brought away from the other whelps to die. There should be pre-assigned DPS to pull them out as well as pre-assigned places to drop them. They should be dropped as close together as possible without causing a resurrection because these void zones will eventually become unmanageable. Bad placement of these will result in premature wipes.

After 3m, Essence of the Red will fade from the raid. This is the point of no return. The room will be littered with void zones, Wrack will be wrecking the raid, and your off tank will likely have high stacks of Twilight Spit from the Twilight Whelps. Tank swapping is generally a good idea unless your tank is a Paladin that can Divine Shield the debuff off. Consider using a cooldown on the off tank and have him take Sinestra from the main tank while having the main tank pick up adds for the last few percentage if needed.

Near the very end, it's best to just off tank the last few waves of Whelps and have the DPS maximize their damage on the boss.