Halls of Valor isn't that bad. So today every single person in our group had a HoV keystone. It was a real "fuck my life" moment, but we ended up running that fucker twice in a row on +8 and we even managed to 3 chest it.

Honestly though if you're not feeling so confident, the safest thing to do is to just take it easy on trash, don't pull multiple packs and even CC some of it if you have to. 3 chesting it isn't necessary to get an upgraded keystone, it's just a bonus. If you play it safe and steady, you should make the timer. I dunno if you're on EU, but if you are then you're dealing with Necrotic this week and that means your tank needs to be able to reset his/her stacks and run away and kite the mobs if/when necessary just to make sure they survive.

Having a HoV key is a pain though, when it could be literally any other dungeon. HoV doesn't take too long, but it feels like forever just because of the RP and the way the dungeon is laid out. I don't like it either. But if you get it set into your head that HoV is an inherently bad dungeon to have a keystone for, you'll only fuck yourself over. It's not a bad dungeon and the timer is pretty generous as long as you don't go mad and pull tons of trash packs at once and have lots of unnecessary deaths. Being safe and caredul is sometimes a good thing if you just want to make the timer and not go for extra chests, it all depends on your group.

I honestly don't know why people have such an aversion to Halls of Valor, it could just be that it's the longest dungeon... but I dunno.