The second of the three new heroic dungeons, Hour of Twilight, is now available on the PTR for testing. I had the chance to run it a couple times last night, and it’s a fairly enjoyable experience. Oddly, it actually takes place storyline-wise after the Well of Eternity instance, which is yet to be made available (and the one I’ve been looking most forward to), so the timeline is a bit mucked if you go straight from End Time to Hour of Twilight. Either way, the story behind Hour of Twilight is fairly straight forward – Thrall has recovered the fabled Dragon Soul, and is now heading back to Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight to rendezvous with the Red, Blue, Green, and Bronze dragonflights. The Twilight’s Hammer is doing all they can to stop him, and you and four friends must accompany Thrall on his treacherous journey through the frozen tundra.
Wyrmrest Temple, with influence by the Old Gods
Caution: Full spoilers are ahead of this point, so stop now if you don’t want anything ruined.
Just like End Time, Hour of Twilight is a three-boss instance. The bosses are always the same, so you’ll always know just what to expect going in here. Before I get to them, however, I’d like to point out that the instance won’t start until you speak to Thrall, and he will lead the way. If you get ahead of Thrall, you’ll be left out of the action, or jumped and attacked early. Stay a few feet behind Thrall, and attack trash as it spawns – no need to rush, everything is scripted. Now, the three bosses are Arcurion, recently renamed assassin Asira Dawnslayer, and a familiar face to many Alliance players, Archbishop Benedictus. Again, I feel like all three could use a buff, but I’m fairly overgeared for the instance, and that’s not what this article is about anyway. You all want strategy.
Arcurion – Arcurion is an ascended water elemental, and is a fairly straightforward fight. The battle takes place in an open area surrounded by cliffs, and when the battle begins Arcurion will summon other elementals (the same ones you’ve been killing leading up to him) to fight from the tops of those cliffs. They just throw down large ice spears, which will show as the traditional blue rune-circle before they land. Just step out if you’re in one and you’ll be fine. As the fight lasts longer and longer, the rate at which the spears are thrown will increase, so try not to take too long killing him. A note to healers, though – Arcurion will also cast Chains of Frost, which simply roots players in place. Dispel this asap so people can move out of the ice boulders. His other mechanic is an ice trap, but is not used against players. Arcurion freezes Thrall, and DPS must stop on the boss to break the World Shaman from his new icy prison. Finally, he enrages at 30% health and does a lot of frost AoE damage, so make sure to save your cooldowns until then. At that point, just continue to focus the boss and watch your feet and he should be dead in no time.
Asira Dawnslayer – Asira is a fun fight. She’s a blood elf rogue, and uses abilities that really feel like an assassin’s. The first is called Mark of Silence. This ability doesn’t actually silence, but as soon as whoever has the mark casts a spell, Asira throws a blade at said person. It will hit the first person it comes in contact with for a bit of damage, and if it hits the person with the Mark, it will also silence for two and a half seconds. Her second ability is called Choking Smoke Bomb. She unleashes a large smoky circle, and you cannot target into or out of it, and anyone inside takes 5000 damage every second. Just kite her out of it asap. They last a while and as the fight goes on there will be more and more, so ranged will have to watch their position to make sure the cloud doesn’t take them out of line of sight. Her only other ability isn’t used unless she gets low on health, and is called Blade Barrier. Any single attack that does less than 30,000 damage will be reduced to 1 damage, but any attack above 30,000 will break her barrier. Save big hits for this point. Once it breaks, she puts up a weaker, identical barrier for 25,000 damage, but the strategy is the same. A sidenote here – Thrall will be casting totems here called Rising Fire totems. Stand in them. They give you additional health and damage, and will help break that Blade Barrier at the end of the fight.
Archbishop Benedictus – Yes, the leader of the Church of the Holy Light in Stormwind City is a dirty, two-faced traitor. The Twilight Father himself is the last encounter in Hour of Twilight, and it takes place right in the middle of Wyrmrest Temple (for anyone that raided during Wrath, it actually takes place on the platform where the summoning stone is for the Obsidian and Ruby Sanctum raids). Benedictus has two phases, but they are more or less the same. The first phase is from 100-60% health and the second is the remainder of his life. He retains the same mechanics from phase 1 to phase 2 and they do the same amount of damage – the only thing that changes are the names and colors of his abilities. First, Benedictus will cast Righteous/Twilight Shear (Righteous in phase 1, Twilight in phase 2). It just damages anyone within 10 yards of the target and stacks, so everyone should be spread out at least 10 yards at all times. The second ability is called Purifying Light/Corrupting Twilight. In each instance, he summons three large orbs above his head, and periodically sends them out to attack players. If hit, they do 80,000 damage, so make sure to watch them and dodge if you get targeted. The final ability is Wave of Virtue/Twilight, and is just a wave mechanic. This is the only mechanic that changes between phases. In phase one, the wave covers the entire platform, and Thrall puts a protective bubble up somewhere that players must get in to avoid being hit. In phase two, there will be an opening in the wave somewhere, so just look for the hole.
If I had to rank them, I would put Asira as the most difficult of the three, followed by Benedictus, and lastly Arcurion. Either way, I found all three fairly easy. With a decent group and these strategies, you should have the Twilight Father regretting his betrayal quite quickly.
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