Barely tanking Halls of Origination normal

Welcome the Halls of Origination normal, a level 85 dungeon located in Uldum, containing 7 bosses! 3 are needed to get the instance achievement, the other 4 are optional. I always without fail get lost in here.

As ever the Sword and Board cheat sheets are great for quick reminders about what to do. For the longer waffle, here we go...

Trash
Not a lot to mention here, at some point there is a suspiciously empty tunnel. When you wander down it, a load of non-elite beatles and an elite beatle spawn which need taking down.

In The Vault of Lights, there are packs of wandering Troggs, which will respawn so it is best to avoid them when possible. There are also 4 mini bosses you must kill to summon the second boss:

Air Warden
Avoid cyclones which knock you into the air, tank and spank.

Earth Warden
Does a front cone attack so keep him turned away from the party. Will do a stun for 4 seconds which makes threat generation interesting.

Flame Warden
Puts fire on the ground, the bad sort. Stacks a debuff which increases fire damage, so tank and spank quickly.

Water Warden
Puts water bubbles on the floor which should be avoided. Puts people into bubbles but the bubbles can be broken out of, but as a tank just tank it and hope the DPS break you out of a bubble.


Mandatory Bosses
Temple Guardian Anhuur
The first boss you need to defect to get past. He will put fires on the ground which should be avoided, and cast Divine Reckoning on someone which needs to be dispelled, or the target has to run away, otherwise 15k health will be taken from everyone in 15 yards.

At 2/3 and 1/3 health he shields, becomes un-damageable and channels an AOE damage spell. At this point two of the party needs to jump down either side of the platform and flick two switches, which turns off his shield, the come back up being chased by snakes, while having someone up the top to interrupt the AOE spell as soon as his shield drops.

Good job that man, having an uber defense mechanism which can be turned off by two players, guarded only by snakes. On normal the switches are instant I think, so you just send two DPS down there, if you are a cat you can switch to bear to soak some snake damage.

When the snakes get back up top with the DPS, swipe and thrash to get aggro on them while everyone AOEs them down, then repeat.

He drops Poison Fang Bracers which I had for a while.

Anraphet
Exiting Anhuur's room you will come to a lift in a room with exits West and East. Go West to reach The Vault of Lights and Anraphet. After killing the 4 Wardens in the room, he will appear.

He will pick someone to cast Alpha Beam on, they just need to move out of it, although he doesn't pick the tank. It will leave a purple puddle on the floor which then has to be avoided for the rest of the fight.

He will cast Nemesis Strike on the tank, which should be dispelled.

The big ability is Omega Stance where he does lots of damage to everyone in the party, which the healer has to heal through. This is the time to pop a cool-down like Barkskin or Survival Instincts to help out. On normal the damage is not that severe, 40k damage over 8 seconds, so with a 100k health pool it can be survived easily.

Rajh
To get to Rajh your party needs to go back to the lift room, get on the lift and activate the console. Rajh is to the north.

Rajh will summon Sun Orb which should be interrupted, otherwise it will likely strike someone and do lots of damage. He also does a leap ability which can be interrupted, but the person he leaps to gets a warning so should really get out of the way.

I seem to remember this leaves fire on the ground, so we swapped sides of the room after his first Blessing of the Sun.

All the while fire cyclones are whirling around the room, which should be avoided.

At certain times when he runs out of energy Rajh will head to the center of the room and channel an AOE called Blessing of the Sun which the healer needs to heal through, you can pop a cool-down here. This also increases damage done to him by 100% so this is also a good time to pop Berserk. Generally the party will group up on him so that AOE heals can work, and the melee can get stuck in.


Optional Bosses

Earthrager Ptah
Bonestorm! You might recognise this guy from such instances as ICC10 or ICC25. Having been given a cheap, Hasbro-style repaint, Lord Marrow... I mean Earthrager Ptah is back. This fight is very straightforward for a tank, just aim him away from the party (nasty cleaves abound) and tank him.

In phase two he falls apart and summons some adds which you need to pick up while the DPS kill em. Throwing a skull onto one of them helps a lot here to set a kill order. Then its back to phase 1 where you just like tank him (and stuff).

Mouth of the Earth is all you're looking for here.

Isiset
One of the remaining constructs of magic in the upper area, Isiset is the lightning/sky boss. During the fight she casts Supernova which you need to turn away from, so you are not facing her at the end of the Supernova cast. This is just like Eradic the Pure in Trial of the Champion.

At various times she will cast Celestial Call and call a familiar, which you can pick up and the DPS should take down. At 66% she splits into three Aspects; Astral Rain, Veil of Sky, and Celestial Call. Taking down one of them makes her reappear, then at 33% she will split back into the two you didn't kill. The best order we find is Rain, then Call then Sky.

Ring of Blinding Stars is what you're after here.

Ammunae
Ammunae is the life magic construct in the upper area. He will spawn seedling pods which the DPS should kill as a priority. He will sometimes spawn Spores which can be killed and then drop a cloud, which you need to drag him away from so the melee aren't standing in it, or stand the boss in it so it will damage him too.

For our attempt we used a Shaman Fire Elemental, who will take care of all the seedling pods without any DPS having to worry.

Sadly Ammunae has no useful drops for us :(

Setesh
Setesh is the purple death construct in the upper area. This fight was judged as a little tricky by my group, as it involves a lot of adds. It is also quite a lot of fun for the tank.

In this fight you don't tank Setesh, he just throws shadow bolts at random people. He summons meteors which leave void zones on the ground, both of which need to be avoided. Most importantly, he summons shadow portals, from which spawn a Void Sentinel, some Void Wurms and a Void Seeker. However, as soon as the portals appear the DPS need to kill the portal, so that it dies asap, thus limiting how many adds come out. What happens to the adds?

Why, that's your job as tank. You need to get to the portals (and can help DPS them), but then pick up anything which comes out and keep it tanked for the whole of the fight. You actually tank the Void Sentinels for the whole fight, but to limit damage done to yourself, you can actively kill the Void Wurms using Mangle, Maul and auto-attacks. Trying to tank everything results in a lot more damage, so I advise you to kill those Wurms asap, while tanking the Sentinels.

He seems to swap sides of the room and wander around when he summons the portals, so you need to be quite mobile. While spamming Swipe and Thrash to keep those adds on you. This fight is the ideal time for Nature's Grasp, which will entangle some of the adds and reduce the damage you take. Then you just rely on the DPS to kill him off, and your healer to keep you alive while 10s of Void thingies are pounding on your furry ass.

After the fight we are after Hieroglyphic Vest.

Conclusion
HoO is quite a nice instance if you are after a lot of Justice Points, because of the sheer number of bosses in it. However, once it comes up as the daily heroic and people are after the VP, I imagine the optional bosses being skipped.