General Vezax Hard Mode

[Arianne]

No, we had 3 ranged outside melee range. I think I'll chalk it up to people scrambling about on our first attempt.

[Locriann]

Wall of text inc. Some may find it helpful.

Afew things for 10 hard that I've noticed, its doable with any healer makeup really(for example, we were using pally shaman) naturally disc priests shine here especially in phase 2 because of the bubbled spike damage. For our attempts we were using 1 tank, and either 2 or 3 heals. I have much better gear than my OT DK, and he has much better dps gear.

Main issues we were encountering weren't mana at all.

Biggest problem was DBM not marking, and people not being able to see the shadow crash till it was right on top of them in phase 2 due to Vezax's huge bubble. Also we had some wipes when Vezax would fail to cast anything during surge. This typically happened EXACTLY as the animus spawned, it actually interrupted his final cast time for surge and he just melee'd for full damage.

The way I tanked this with my pally was, I kited him for the first 4 surge of powers. We're decently heavy on melee, getting him to about 20-30% before animus. my OT went blood DPS spec, so after first surge, he would throw up mark of blood on Vezax. Ensuring it'd be up again for when animus spawns(another strange CD to help bring to the table, you cant really kite during animus phase because vezax doesn't always slow down like he's supposed to, and you risk putting melee out of range, and range into melee)

So cooldowns went as follows:

Indestructible pot, pull, shield wall right off the bat to conserve mana, I used Furnace stone and Valor badge for this encounter, I would pop them early in the fight so they'd be up again for animus. When the animus is about to respawn, refresh your sacred shield, pop another indestructible pot.

I kited the boss all the way from one corner of the room to the other, ensuring after I believe 4 surges(the amount of times he typically does them in 10 man) that I'd end up near if not directly on top of the animus spawn location. I found after animus spawned, it was unreasonable to turn my ass to vezax and run for surge. So for the first one(it hits just about same time animus spawns) you probably just want to tank him through it with DP I found naturally you want to kill the animus before 2nd phase 2 surge because A. You used your divine protection on the FIRST surge and B the second surge in phase 2 means even if vezax DOES slow down, you still have to deal with an animus hitting you in the back while kiting.

We attempted in 2 ways. 7 dps 2 heals, and 6 dps 3 heals. for 7 dps, the objective is to kill the animus before 2nd surge. If you cant then your healers will be very very hard pressed to keep you up during it because you HAVE to use your secondary cooldowns on it. For 6 dps, the 2nd surge isn't as much as a death sentence. You can use hand of salv, all your trinkets, hand of sacrifice if theres one available, Mark of blood(we even had the DK glyph into blood tap to heal the whole group for 10% in an emergency, pain supress, gaurdian spirit(lawl holy priest? it COULD work) yadda yadda. 3 heals attempts typically did alot better than 2 naturally, we just had an undergeared resto druid do NOTHING untill phase 2 hit. Then heal up a storm, Worked well.

the biggest thing was DBM not marking shadow crash(because nobody was targeting vezax)
The way to prevent this is simple macros. I built a whole bar of them so I was gauranteed to still see the casts so dbm would still mark. So I'll have Vezax on target, and Animus on focus the whole time and macro attacks on the animus. Its the same way I MT heal with my priest.

first macro,

/tar Saronite Animus
/focus
This will set animus to your focus target.

Second macros, including tooltip

#showtooltip Judgement of Light
/cast [target=focus, exists] Judgement of Light
This macro will hit your focus(the animus) with judgement of light

Obviously, you make one for every ability you typically tank with(judgement, hammer, shields) This way, you can effectively Stare down Vezax and watch for shadowcrash, while still hiting the Animus and never having to untarget vezax. The animus only has 2 million health in 10 man, obviously your threat wont be PHENOMINAL since you'll be facing vezax the entire duration, your standard melee swings will still be hitting Vezax. But lets be honest, you're a prot pally, if you're doing your whole rotation on the focus target then you should be able to hold threat even without melee swings. Rogues and hunters can help naturally.

Sorry this was so long winded, I hope those looking for info found something useful here

Locriann of Lightning's Blade

[Jasari]

Rather than setting up a zillion macros you could have just /focus General Vezax at the start of the fight. It'll show his shadow crash targets if you have him focused.

[Avengeance]

OR get your healers to target vezax and promote them to assistant... healers should be using click heal instead of target heal by now anyway.

[Locriann]

Actually, the /focus was NOT working for us, and healers need to use specific UI's to promote being able to target the boss and heal without off clicking him... Not all healers use new UI's some use... gulp... standard raid frames.


I did it with /focus many times and it wasn't calling out the crashes.

[Keladin]

Our disc priest use's grid for a raid frame and just targets General and click heals what she needs, it works perfect and dbm marks the ppl getting shadow crashed.

Grid is awesome anyways and I highly suggest it!

[gregorian]

Thanks for sharing. Could you explain where exactly the animus spawns?

Also, Animus possibly hitting your back during a vezax kite reveals a flaw in the way you kite. The correct practice is to always strafe away so you retain the ability to d/b/p, not turn around and run, or worse, backpedal. You can practice this by solo tanking emalon and running in and out of novas with 4 adds on you.

[kandros]

still stand thw whole fight without moving and burn cooldows on surge of darkness is much better then run, especially when u tank both anumus anche vezax, the anumis spawn always in the same position, very close to the yog saron's room door

the strategy we use is really really easy, vezax tanked where is stand, 3 groups of ranged dps, one on the right of the room, one on the left and one in front of him, waitin for their own shadow crash (thiss will save lot of accidentally damage) healers stay near the tank with the melee group so less ppl have possibility to being hit by vezax's ranged spells, on each surge of darkness dont move and pop a cooldown, our rotation was he same as the one we used for mimiron:
CD 1:divine protecion
CD 2:pain suppression(our holy priest respec disci for this fight)
CD 3:divine sacrifice+hand of sacrifice

TIP: ask your shadow priests to remove Shadow Word: Death from their bar, especially after the animus is up and you have shadow damage increased is a one-shot-suicide

[gregorian]

Where does teh animus spawn?

[kandros]

near the yog saron's room door

[Belloc]

The Animus spawns where General Vezax is standing before you pull him.

If you are using a kite strategy throughout the fight, I highly recommend that you use shield wall during the first kite phase after the animus spawns, because you do not want to be kiting.

In fact, I recommend not kiting at all, ever. On both 10-man hard-mode and 25-man normal mode, we use a rotation of divine protection and hand of sacrifice+trinkets (on-use armor trinket and on-use dodge trinket). We haven't lost a tank during the sac/trinket phase yet. DK tanks currently have it easier, but any tank is capable of using a no-kite strategy.

[Falibard]

Actually, the /focus was NOT working for us, and healers need to use specific UI's to promote being able to target the boss and heal without off clicking him... Not all healers use new UI's some use... gulp... standard raid frames.


I did it with /focus many times and it wasn't calling out the crashes.

If you have your ranged set Vezax on focus they can see when his target changes to one of them and have plenty of time to move. Not targeting the animus/doing full damage wouldn't be a method I'd suggest. It would only take a good string of crits from a ranged in a shadow crash to pull and you can't taunt the animus. But if it work, it works.

[itankforcash]

Question for 25 man Hard mode, not sure if this is mentioned anywhere but...

Is it possible to tank General and the Animus on 25 man? or is the damage too much?

[Rehlachs]

healing could be doable, but getting both mobs into the correct position is somewhere in between impossible and "not worth the effort".

[Seloei]

getting them both in position is not hard if you are not kiting at all on 25man, altho the damage taken from both of them would be a 'bit' unstable. Imagine a melee hit from both at the same time and you don't avoid atleast one of them. Result would be either <5k health which the aura ticking for will lower or cause death. It is possible, but it's risky and would have the healers spam healing you to survive with burning mana.

But i agree with the above poster "between undoable and not worth it"