The Hour of Twilight is the last of the three new Heroic instances added in Patch 4.3 that provide the story line that leads up to the Dragon Soul raid and the final fight with Deathwing. This instance takes place in Dragonblight as you escort Thrall back to Wyrmrest temple now that you have possession of the Dragon Soul and a way to defeat Deathwing.

Thrall takes part in all of the fights in one way or another, and has abilities that help significantly, even against trash mobs. It is therefore important to watch what he is doing and to stay near enough for him to gain the benefit of his abilities and totems.

The instance is fairly short, comprised of just three bosses and a few trash packs. There is a decent amount of travel time in the instance though between bosses and trash, as it is an outdoor instance and an escort mission. There are points in time where you can mount up and follow Thrall as he transforms into ghost wolf form. This does add some time to the instance and may get tedious over time, but does fit the story line of the instance quite well.

The Hour of Twilight bosses drop item level 378 epic items just like the bosses in the other two new heroic instance: End Time and Well of Eternity. The items still seem a little too good for the difficulty of the instance being the same as Firelands raid look, but at least Hour of Twilight is a little harder than the other two instances. Players coming into this instance without raid gear or upgrades from the first two Patch 4.3 instances may have issues.

Now onto the bosses, they are Arcurion, Asira Dawnslayer, and Archbishop Benedictus.

Arcurion - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: Hour of Twilight

Arcurion

The first encounter in the Hour of Twilight is against an ice ascendant called Arcurion. He has a few abilities that players have to deal with all of which are ice based. He has an ice grip that deals big damage to his main target, and an AOE freeze that traps all players in place for 10 seconds. Most importantly however is Arcurion’s icy tomb. This attack traps Thrall in ice and he needs to be freed quickly or he will be killed and you will lose the fight. In addition above the fight there are elementals throwing down ice onto players. The ground will be marked where these blocks of ice will land, so you need to constantly move to avoid them.

At 30% health left Arcurion will enrage going a frost attack that hits all players every second for damage and a slow effect. This will continue to be cast until he is killed. This phase can be very difficult on healers so saving cooldowns for this phase is recommended so that you can get through it quickly.

As long as players free Thrall, and avoid as many of the ice boulders as possible, the fight should be ok for most groups. The only exception is if DPS is light or the healer is under geared, then the phase below 30% health could cause issues.

Asira Dawnslayer - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: Hour of Twilight

Asira Dawnslayer

The second boss in the instance is Asira Dawnslayer a Blood Elf assassin. Asira has a few interesting abilities such as Mark of Silence, that marks a player and then if that player casts a spell while marked Asira throws a knife at them which hits for damage and inflicts a 2.5 second silence. Asira also has a smoke bomb ability that blocks line of sight and does damage to anyone in it. Lastly she has an interesting shield ability called Blade Barrier that has two levels. While the first tier is up all damage done to her below 30,000 is dropped to 1 damage until you deal more than that in 1 hit, once that is knocked down she gains a lesser one that is the same but 25,000 damage limit.

This fight is mainly about avoiding damage as much as possible while dropping Asira as fast as possible. A key element to be aware of is Thralls totems, make sure you stay in range as they provide a significant boost to your ability increasing your damage and health.

Archbishop Benedictus - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: Hour of Twilight

Archbishop Benedictus

The last fight in Hour of Twilight is against what should be one of your allies. Once Thrall makes it to Wyrmrest Temple Archbishop Benedictus confronts the group and demands the dragon soul for his own purposes. Of course you must refuse and a fight ensues.

The fight is made up of two phases and has more mechanics that any of the other fights in the three new heroic instances. He has a stacking AOE attack called Righteous Shear that hits the player for damage and also hits any other nearby player for damage based on the number of stacks of Righteous Shear on the target. He also has orbs of light that he sends out at random targets that explode when they hit the ground dealing AOE damage and knocking anyone in the AOE back. Lastly he can summon a wave of virtue that moves across the room dealing heavy damage to anyone in its way.

The key points in phase one are keeping spread out to minimize shears damage, getting out of the blasts caused by the orbs, and trying to avoid the waves. Thrall helps out significantly here as he will destroy two of the orbs and can put up a shield to hide under when a wave is summoned. Try to minimize incoming damage by avoiding as much as possible.
The second phase starts when you get Benedictus down to 60% health, at which point he transforms to a shadow form showing that he is in fact a member of the twilight forces. At this point in time he traps Thrall and you lose his assistance for the rest of the fight, making it more difficult than in phase one.

Benedictus’s abilities shift to shadow damage instead of holy damage and change in name, but are essentially the same abilities. The wave is quite big and without Thralls shield to hide under it can be hard to avoid, do your best to avoid it though as the more damage you take the harder the healer has to work. Also without Thrall all three orbs need to be dealt with, which requires players to either watch carefully as they fly out at them, or have a DPS deal with them in the air.

The fight can be simple if everyone is good at moving and avoiding damage, or extremely difficult if they fail at it. Take your time, pay attention to the damaging effects, especially the wave, and the fight will go smoothly.

Messiah's Overall Opinion on WoW Patch 4.3 Hour of Twilight Heroic Dungeon

This instance is a third great example of what Blizzard can do to tell a story in an instance, just like the other two new Patch 4.3 Heroic instances. This instance is also the most difficult of the three new instances, and fittingly so as the final 5 player content before the next expansion World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is released sometime late next year.

Overall I liked the instance a lot, even if the scenery was a little bland compared to the two other new instances. At least the fights were more difficult in this instance, and if you don’t make use of Thralls help, even the trash mobs can be challenging.

The three new instances when run back to back form a compelling and interesting story line that leads up to the final raid and fight against Deathwing beautifully. Better yet, since they provide Firelands quality gear in a five player instance, running them will allow players gear so that they can qualify to enter the Dragon Soul raid with the Raid Finder tool. Good thinking, and great job on the instances Blizzard!