Headless Horseman

• "Prepare yourselves, the bells have tolled! Shelter your weak, your young and your old! Each of you shall pay the final sum. Cry for mercy, the reckoning has come!"

The Headless Horseman is the boss of Hallow's End. In the open world, the shades of the horsemen terrorize six starting towns, three of each faction. The Horseman also appears as the sole encounter in a special version of the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, queued for via Dungeon Finder.

The Horseman was once a Knight of the Silver Hand, but is now cursed. He is of the belief that he is alive, while those who face him are dead. When defeated, he is revealed as Sir Thomas Thomson.

Added in patch 10.1.7 for the 2023 iteration of Hallow's End, players can speak with wicker men at the beginning of the instance before starting the encounter to engage in a personal hard mode. That is, any player that elects to engage in hard mode will not affect the difficulty of other players during the encounter.

The four small wicker men provide one curse each:

The central (larger) Ominous Wicker Man will apply all four debuffs at once!

Failing to dodge a cursed ability or properly execute a mechanic will add a stack or two of Wicker Man's Shadow:

Players cannot take too many hits or they'll run out of health. Should they "die", the wicker men will step in:

If players survive the encounter with all four curses still active, they will earn the Kickin' With the Wick achievement, and have improved odds on loot from the Loot-Filled Pumpkin.

The 2023-and-beyond version of the encounter is a single phase from 100% to zero with no invulnerable Head of the Headless Horseman intermissions.

The strategy boils down to "don't stand in bad". AoE down summoned adds, get out of the fire arcs, and spread out when circles surround each player.

Hard mode adds a few wrinkles, though they also mostly boil down to "don't stand in bad". Be on the lookout for a shade tethered to a fire pit that must die before it reaches it. Additionally, an obvious spot on the ground will light up that players should step in.

The first time characters defeat the Headless Horseman each day, he drops a Loot-Filled Pumpkin for level 60-or-above players, which contains 4-6x Tricky Treat, a Flimsy Mask, and rarely any of:

Below that level, he instead drops a Loot-Stuffed Pumpkin, which contains most of the above loot pool, but not the mount.

The Horseman also has a chance to directly drop one of these rings each time he's defeated:

• Band of the Petrified Pumpkin
• Seal of Ghoulish Glee
• The Horseman's Ring
• Wicked Witch's Signet

• Aggro
• say
• say
• say
• say
• say

• Abilities
• say (Pumpkin Breath)
• say (Vine March)
• say (Hot Head)

• Kill
• yell

• Death
• say
• A ghostly orb of light leaves the undead form and flies over in front of the ruined tomb behind the Pumpkin Shrine, revealing it to be the ghost of Sir Thomas. The ghost of Suzannah runs up to meet him:
• say
• say

Before the encounter, Suzannah Thomson has this gossip:

From left to right, the five wicker men have this gossip:

The accept option pops up a confirmation box:

• red
• Do you wish to continue?

• Cleave: Standard cleave, hits for ~4k damage to plate.
• Whirlwind: After losing its head, the body will AoE whirlwind for ~2k/sec.
• Summon Flaming Heads: Several flaming jack-o-lanterns appear and move toward the party, exploding for ~100k damage when they hit a player.
• Conflagration: An AoE DoT, can only be removed with a PvP Trinket or other similar abilities(Ice Block, Divine Shield, etc.). Ticks for a percentage of your maximum health every second and confuses the target. Lasts ~5 seconds. Feigning Death right before the conflag hits will cancel the fear effect, although the emotes and animations will still proc. You can attack/move as normal. Not sure if this also cleanses the DoT too. Also triggers Conflagrated Weapon.
• Conflagrated Weapon: Gives the Horseman a chance to do extra fire damage on melee attacks. Allows the use of Fiery Cleave. Lasts 11 seconds.
• Fiery Cleave: Deals 100k damage to targets in front of the Horseman.
• Head of the Horseman: Active after the Horseman suffers 99% damage each phase. 63000 Health.
• Pulsing Pumpkin: Tossed on the ground during phase three. Casts sprout after ~15 seconds. ~10k Health. If a pumpkin lands on a player, they get a disease named Squash Soul which is -18 Spirit for 20 minutes.
• Pumpkin Fiend: Sprouted from the Pulsing Pumpkins. Deals ~650 base damage and has ~10k Health.

The Headless Horseman encounter is a three phase fight.

The Horseman makes his entrance and engages whoever lit the candle. The tank should taunt immediately if they did not start the event. Watch out for Cleave and DPS him down.

At 1% the horseman will go immune, toss his head, walk around disoriented, and occasionally use a Whirlwind attack. The Head of the Horseman will become an active target while the body heals to 100%. All DPS should have a target macro for Head of the Horseman. After the party damages the head to about 60%, or the body heals to 100%, the head will rejoin the body and the next phase begins.

Pre-2023 quotes:

• Lost Head:
• say

• Rejoined:
• yell

When the Horseman rejoins with his head, he targets the player with the highest threat. This is the same as phase one except he will randomly cast Conflagration on a random party member (not the tank). You can use a PvP Trinket to remove the Conflagration. Healers and ranged DPS should be alert to the location of both tank and Conflagration target; steer clear of these.

Phase two ends if the head reaches about 30% health, or when the body heals to 100%.

The Horseman does not use Conflagration in Phase Three. Eventually he will toss four Pulsing Pumpkins, which sprout Pumpkin Fiends after several seconds, and they will completely heal. The fastest course of action seems to be having the tank stand in the middle of the pumpkins with focus abilities at the ready. The rest of the party continues DPS on the Horseman until his head is tossed. If the party has low DPS, a second or even third wave of Pulsing Pumpkins can be spawned before the head is tossed.

Tanking the Horseman on the steps to the underground area will cause all the spawns to land very close to the boss. This should make it very easy for the tank to pick them all up.

Once the Head of the Horseman dies, the Headless Horseman has been defeated, and the remaining pumpkins will die. If you don't kill the Head of the Horseman before the Horseman heals to 100%, Phase Three will repeat, meaning you have to nuke the Horseman again to get him to toss his head.

• Having a Paladin or Death Knight tank makes this Phase much easier due to Consecration or Death and Decay (death knight ability). The rest of the party hugs the tank, inside the spell's range, allowing the tank to pick up the Fiends, thereafter the DPS can burn these down.

• The key to the Headless Horseman is to find and DPS down the head as fast as possible when it is off the Horseman. The head does no damage so all DPS should feel free to unload on it. The macro " " helps with this, as it allows you to pick up the head almost as soon as it detaches. To make certain that the macro does not inadvertently target the Headless Horseman, you can use " ".

• The Headless Horseman is voiced by Carlos Larkin.
• The description of his LFG event is as such: Defeat the mad Headless Horseman before he burns down every last settlement in Azeroth.
• Each year he can drop a variant of the sword he is actually seen using.
• The is a common character in European fairy tales and folklore.
• The Horseman's steed appears as a mount in Heroes of the Storm. The Horseman appears as a boss mercenary in the Towers of Doom map.