Heroic Ultraxion 10man for Hunters

Earlier this week we downed Heroic Ultraxion.  It's not news of any sort, but I thought I'd share some tips and tricks I learned along the way.  Next week Dragon Soul gets the 10% nerf so more guilds may be attempting it.  Here's my hunter view on the fight and the differences from normal.

Taking Turns with Hour of Twilight
Instead of just one tank staying in for Hour of Twilight, two people must stay in in heroic-10.  When/if a player stays in, they get a debuff which will insta-kill them if they stay in again.  The debuff lasts two mins, which means that you need six people taking the hour of twilights in a cycle in groups of two.  What's great for hunters, is that we have an AMAZING ability with deterrence.  It is available every two mins AND it prevents ALL damage.  That combination isn't that common.  That means you want to step up and do it.

Hitting Deterrence or the Heroic Will Button
Ultraxion's cast time for Hour of Twilight in heroic is much faster.  It goes from five seconds in normal to only three seconds in heroic.  If you have much latency you'll see it as two seconds.  What this means is that you always need to be ready to hit the right button.  Initially, you'll want to just hit it immediately.  After you get comfortable with your timing, you can slip in an extra shot and cut it closer.  But no matter what, you can't be surprised by it.  Know that it's coming and be ready before it's there.

If it's your turn to stay in and deterrence then you should know when the hour of twilight is coming and you should either have a double-stop-cast deterrence macro, or you shouldn't have any long casts that could delay your deterrence.

Thankfully, the Heroic Will button will cancel any cast.

Note: you should only use Deterrence if your raid[leader] tells you to or if you're in the rotation.

Fading Light
The fading light debuff will affect two dps and one tank in heroic-10 -- instead of just one dps and one tank.  This means you have a good chance of taking a fading light.  To make it more fun, the debuff no longer starts from between five and ten second before it insta-kills you.  It seems to start between three and seven seconds.  If I'm playing with 250ms latency it seems to start at two seconds because of the rounding that occurs with debuffs.

Again to address this, you always need to be ready for fading light.  Don't wait for it to reach zero.  Watch DBM for the timers and be ready.  Don't let this screw up a follow-on deterrence or second heroic will.  There is a situation that can rarely occur;  Heroic will has a 5sec CD so it is possible for it be on CD if fading light and hour of twilight occur closely.  In that case make sure to fade for fading light a little early.

When to DPS: Before the First Twilight
There are no fading lights before the first twilight occurs.  Lay into him and blow CDs.  Prepot.  Whatever you can do.  The fight is over five minutes, so Rapid Fire away. It it pure dps with no interruptions.  Since everyone is in-phase and not interrupted, we found it a nice time to hero.  This is the only time to get dps tunnel vision.

When to DPS: Trinkets
If you have on-use trinkets there are times when you'll want to defer using them for five seconds or so. A good time to hit them is right after a twilight.  For the 1.5min trinket this aligns nicely.  You just don't want to have that lovely dps burst interrupted.

When to DPS: Through and After a Twilight/Fading Light
Once you have the heroic will down, you can start to lay in more shots.  As SV you'll have a few options.  The biggest thing is that you want your DoTs to keep rolling while you're not there.  If you have the option to slightly clip an Explosive Shot's DoT right before fading, you should.  If the consequence is to greatly clip the DoT, then don't!

Fading Lights can be very quick.  I was able to pretty easily always fade with less than two seconds left on the debuff.  If DoTs are ticking so much the better.  But Hour of Twilight is a little bit longer of a dps hiatus.  The boss has the casting bar and then it doesn't actually occur until the wave passes over the group.  And it's whereever on the platform the group could be.  Then and only then do you come back to the twilight.

If you are deterrencing for an hour of twilight, you must have a cancel aura macro on hand.  Do the deterrence; wait for the wave to pass over you; cancel the deterrence; hit every dps CD you have and slam into him.  You'll have a second or more of extra dps that you wouldn't have if you had faded.

Surviving
This is a dps race.  You're doing this with two healers and some smattering of other health and healing abilities.  But you need to survive.  Until about 4.5mins into the fight it's all about proper execution.  Some time after that point it becomes about dps'ng while helping the healers.  When you notice everyone's health really low, consider helping the healers keep you up.

Hunters don't have group damage reduction CDs, but they can cheaply help themselves.  If you're a Dwarf, you can have eight seconds of 10% damage reduction.  When you're DPS'ng from the stairs in a nice tight group, hunters can both attack as melee and range.  Don't pass up a big DPS but if it's only an Arcane Shot vs staying alive, go with staying alive.  Smack a glyphed raptor strike.  Healthstones are also a nice thing to chew at that time.  If you somehow fell into bringing a pet for some buff (it better pay off!) who can intervene now's the time to use it on the active tank.

Loot
The kill can net you the heroic chest, bracers, and another shot at the trinket and ring.  In sadness, please note that the ring is both laden with expertise and best in slot.  For the record: I won the chest this past week.  I have passed (for the moment) on the ring for rogues and ferals.