With the prolonged maintenance last night, Blizz finally unlocked the final raid instance before Cataclysm: The Ruby Sanctum. Located under the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight, this zone features 3 mini-bosses (Baltharus the Warborn, General Zarithrian, and Saviana Ragefire) and one end boss, Halion.

Before heading in, make sure to pick up the quests for the instance so you don’t miss out on 5 frost emblems! [Assault On The Sanctum] started by Krasus on top of the Temple, which leads to [The Twilight Destroyer].

Strategies and video guides when you click “Read More”.

Taken from Wowhead,

Overview

Having defeated his three lieutenants, the path to Halion will become available to you. He is a three-phase fight that requires 2 tanks and whatever number of healers you feel most comfortable with. Begin the encounter by having one of your tanks drag Halion close to one of the sides of the circle of fire that the dragon will spawn. You want to leave your raid as much room to maneuver as possible. It’s a good idea to have your melee DPS attack the boss from next to the hind leg, with the casters a little further back, but away from the center of the body, closer to the edge of the fire circle.

Only two abilities might cause problems during the first phase of this fight. Fiery Combustion is a debuff applied to a random (ranged?) raider and it ticks for some healable Fire damage and applies a stackable Mark of Combustion every time it ticks. When it’s removed – by either magic remove, curse remove, or after 30 seconds – it will cause the raider to explode, doing Fire damage and knockback to everyone around them. The problem comes from the fire “void zone” the player spawns when they explode – it increases in size and possibly damage with every stack Mark. You should have people with this debuff run away from the raid, where their debuff can be safely removed. Make sure those people don’t run to a location you plan on moving to, as the Combustions are quite big.

The second ability in this phase is Meteor Strike. It targets the ground underneath a random raider and drops a meteor on that location after about 5-6 seconds. The meteor does quite a bit of damage and shoots out lines of fire that resemble an ‘X’. Those should be easy to avoid – whenever one of them comes up, simply have the entire raid shift. Melee DPS can just switch to the front leg, and the tank can take a few steps back. If the tank has to move, make sure you all adjust. Halion will also cast a Flame Breath on the tank, like every self-respecting dragon should.

Phase 2 will begin at 75%. Halion will open a portal to the Twilight Realm, where the entire raid except for the main tank and their healer should join him. The dragon’s physical form will be immune to damage for the duration of this phase – from 75% to 50%. Inside the portal, Halion should be positioned in the middle, nobody but the tank in front of him. The Twilight phase is very similar to the normal one – Halion will Dark Breath instead of its Flame counterpart; he will do Mark of Consumption, which sucks people in as opposed to knocking them back; he also has a Shadow raid-wide damaging aura, Dark Shroud. He won’t do Meteor Strike – in its place he will summon two Shadow Pulsars. Those two orbs will spawn diametrically opposite of one another and will slowly circle the outskirts of the fighting area, always staying at the opposite ends of the circle. Soon after they spawn, they will shoot a beam that will connect them. As they continue to circle around the ring, the entire raid will have to shift with them so they don’t get hit by the beam. This phase will follow a pattern of 10 seconds beam, 20 seconds no-beam, 10 seconds beam again, and so on.

At 50% Halion will enter his third and last phase, the split phase. He will open two portals to the physical realm, which half of the raid should use to return to the MT and his or her healer. From this point on, your goal is to equalize the DPS in the two realms – the portals will remain open in case you need to make adjustments. Halion’s corporeality will go up and down based on how much damage you do to him. If the DPS in the physical realm is higher, the boss’ corporeality will decrease as he seeks sanctuary in the Twilight realm, and vice versa. In other words:

• Corporeality < 50% – Halion does and takes more damage in the Twilight Realm. He does and takes less damage in the physical one.
• Corporeality = 50% – Halion does and takes normal damage in both realms.
• Corporeality > 50% – Halion does and take more damage in the Physical Realm. He does and takes less damage in the twilight one.

You should try to keep Halion’s corporeality between 40% and 60%.

Phase 1: Physical Realm

• Twilight Precision – Increases Halion’s chance to hit by 5% and decreases all players’ chance to dodge by 20%.
• Flame Breath – Inflicts 17,500 to 22,500 Fire damage to players in front of Halion.
• Meteor Strike – Inflicts 18,750 to 21,250 Fire damage to enemies within 12 yards of the targeted area. Takes about 5 seconds to land. Shoots X-shaped lines of fire after it hits the ground.

• Fiery Combustion – Inflicts 4,000 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 30 seconds to a random raider. Every time Fiery Combustion does damage, it applies a stackable Mark of Combustion.

  • Mark of Combustion – Has no immediate effect on the target. When removed (by either magic-remover or curse-remover, or after 30 seconds) it causes a Combustion of size proportional the the number of Marks.
  • Combustion – Inflicts 2,625 to 3,375 Fire damage every second to targets that remain within the explosion area. Combustion has 6 yards radius. Also knocks nearby players back with Fiery Combustion.

Phase 2: Twilight Realm

• Twilight Precision – Increases Halion’s chance to hit by 5% and decreases all players’ chance to dodge by 20%.
• Dark Breath – Inflicts 17,500 to 22,500 Shadow damage to players in front of Halion.
• Dusk Shroud – Inflicts 3,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds to everyone in the Twilight Realm.

• Shadow Pulsars – Summons two Shadow Pulsars at the two ends of one the fighting area’s diameters. The Pulsars slowly circle the area, beaming a Twilight Cutter for 10 seconds, then resting for 20 seconds, then beaming another Cutter.

  • Twilight Cutter – Inflicts 13,875 to 16,125 Shadow damage every second to players touched by the shadow beam.

• Soul Consumption – Inflicts 4,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 30 seconds to a random raider. Every time Soul Consumption does damage, it applies a stackable Mark of Consumption.

  • Mark of Consumption – Has no immediate effect on the target. When removed (by either magic-remover or curse-remover, or after 30 seconds) it causes a Consumption of size proportional the the number of Marks.
  • Consumption – Inflicts 2,625 to 3,375 Shadow damage every second to targets that remain within the explosion area. Combustion has 6 yards radius. Also pulls nearby players to its center with Soul Consumption.

Phase 3: Split

• Twilight Precision – Increases Halion’s chance to hit by 5% and decreases all players’ chance to dodge by 20%.
• Corporeality – Halion takes and and does more damage in the realm he takes less damage in. At 0% and 100% Corporeality, Halion does and takes 400% extra damage in one of the realms, and no damage in the other.
• Physical Realm – Halion continues using his abilities from phase 1 when fighting players in the physical realm.
• Twilight Realm – Halion continues using his abilities from phase 2 when fighting players in the twilight realm.

Tankspot’s Video Guide can be found here:

The written guide is here: http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?67195-Halion-Encounter-Guide-Pre-Release.