Just spotted a hotfix blog entry from Blizzard made on the day that I published my whinge at the horrors of healing on Horridon post that has nerfed the encounter a bit more for us 10 man raid teams.

Horridon

• Reduced the health of Farraki Wastewalkers, Gurubashi Venom priests, Drakkari Frozen Warlords, and Amani Warbears in the Horridon encounter by 15% in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Drakkari Frozen Warlord now deals less damage with Mortal Strike in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Risen Drakkari Champions and Warriors now deals less damage with Deadly Plague in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Tortos

• Whirl Turtles now have a reduced base movement speed in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Vampiric Cave Bats now deal less damage in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Both bosses where really rough with many raid compositions and it makes me feel less whinney and more justified now.

However I am baffled by a couple of the other hotfixes:

Council of Elders

• Decreased the power gain rate of possessed council members in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Frost King Malakk now deals less damage with each stack of Frostbite in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Sul the Sandcrawler now deals less damage with Sandbolt in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Garalon

• Garalon's enrage timer has been increased to 12 minutes, up from 7 minutes in 10-player and 25-player Normal difficulty.

 Neither of these seem justified to me especially the Garalon fix as if the fight lasts more than 7 minutes you'll be hitting the healers out of mana soft enrage anyway. I'll gladly take the Council nerf though as the power gain rate will allow more nuke time on Sul which means a faster death for him and once you're down to 3 elders the fight becomes a faceroll and probably makes it a 2 healer fight already.
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My raid team is 15 people and we run an odd system of "pods" so we have 3 tanks, 3 pure healers, 3 off healers, 3 melee DPS and 3 ranged DPS and rotate people in these pods based on their availability rather than a strict rotation and I'm actually an "off healer" but as my raid team runs with some good DPS, that enables us to run with 3 healers on most fights and allows me to stick primarily to atonement which makes up some of the slack of the missing 6th DPS and allows us that extra security blanket.

On our kills of Horridon in the past few weeks we had a healing team of priest/paladin/druid and priest/paladin/shaman and everything was great. This past week however, we hit a massive issue and actually failed to kill Horridon until 20 minutes before raid end on our 2nd day of attempts. This meant we didn't get a Council kill this week which meant we missed out on a tier piece for the raid. /boo. Why did we have this issue on a "farm" boss?

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Horridon is a messy fight but when broken down into the basics and attention paid to the kill order of the adds becomes a lot easier to understand.

The fight consists of fighting the boss and a variety of adds that spawn from a number of doors around teh arena or from the area above.

We start by pulling Horridon, a big dinosaur who needs to be tanked throughout the encounter. Like most bosses he has 3 main abilities:

1. Triple Puncture applies a stacking debuff that increases the damage taken by Triple Puncture by 10% which forces a tank swap.
2. Double Swipe is a 35-yard conal attack with a 2.5 second cast time that deals damage in front of and behind him. To avoid Double Swipe, players (inc the tanks) should always stay on Horridon's side.
3. Horridon will occassionally charge a raid member and perform a Double Swipe once he reaches them. To ensure the raid don't take damage from the Double Swipe players targeted by Charge should move away to a location from which will require the raid to move as little as possible to avoid Double Swipe.

Before we get to the doors, we'll just take a look at a recurring add, the Zandalari Dinomancer, who will join the fight 1 minute after each door has been opened.

When he joins the fight, he becomes the number 1 DPS priority and needs to be tanked by the OT. While he is above 50% HP, he will try to channel Dino-Mending on Horridon. This MUST be interupted or Horridon is healed for 1% health every second.

When the Dinomancer reaches 50% health, he drops his Orb of Control which needs to be clicked to take control of Horridon and force him to slam into the currently opened Troll door.

40 seconds later the next door will open and a new set of adds spawn.

The Farraki Door

The main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the sand traps;
• Dispel the magic debuffs;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Sul'lithuz Stonegazers > Farraki Wastewalkers > Farraki Skirmishers > Horridon

The Gurubashi Door

Main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the poison pools;
• Interupt the Venom Bolt Volleys cast by the Gurubashi Venom Priest;
• Dispel people with high stacks of the Venom Bolt Volley debuff;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Venomous Effusions > Zandalari Dinomancer > Gurubashi Venom Priests > Gurubashi Bloodlords > Horridon

The Drakkari Door

• Main things of note here are:
• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the Frozen Orbs;
• Dispel people with high stacks of Deadly Plague;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Drakkari Frozen Warlords > Risen Drakkari Warriors > Risen Drakkari Champions > Horridon (unless he is nearing 30% health)

The Amani Door

Main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid Lightning Nova Totems;
• Amani'shi Flame Caster's Fireball should be interrupted;
• Players need to spread out 5 yards to prevent Chain Lightning from jumping;
• Hex of Confusion should be dispelled;
• Group up (but stay 5 yards apart) so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Amani'shi Beast Shamans > Amani Warbears > Amani'shi Protectors and Amani'shi Flame Casters > Horridon (unless he is nearing 30% health)

Jalak and Burn Phase

40 seconds after the Amani Door is destroyed, War-God Jalak jumps down into the arena and needs to be off tanked and becomes the focus of all DPS. Jalak should be tanked on Horridon's side and cooldowns used to burn Jalak down fast. As there is high, raid wide damage during this phase, all players excpet the Horridon tank should stack up and if targeted by charge, run to the tank.

After Jalak dies, swap tanks if the stacks of Triple Puncture have dropped off Jalak's tank. and then burn an enraged Horridon who will still do his 3 main abilities.

Priest Tips
As a disc priest the Glyph of Smite is a must here and for both disc and holy Glyph of Mass Dispel is fantstic as it prevents a tick of Blazing Sunlight.

For disc priests atonement healing will give you awesome returns as Horridon takesincreased damage Smite, Power Word: Solace, and Penance spells give you increased damage and bigger heals. 

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