Hex Lord, WTF?

[Dazhbog]

Alright, what the HELL is needed for this guy? We went into ZA on Thursday with:

2 tanks (me and a bear who is better geared then I am)
3 healers (priest/druid/paladin, ranging from 3/6 SSC gear to BT gear)
2 mages
1 rogue
1 hunter
1 shadow priest

We ended up missing the third timed chest by maybe 2 minutes (freakin' scout gauntlet gave us some crap luck), and wiped four times on Hex Lord without barely making a dent in him (last and best try was 70%). Our strategy's solid, the CC on the adds was holding, he just wittled us down until two or three people bit it, and we'd wipe. It looked like our healers were exhausting themselves, but that seems so strange to me, considering they had not only a spriest, but have managed to keep their resources up far longer in other situations.

This bastard's a major roadblock, and I can't see any way around him.

[Invisusira]

The BEST way to do this is with 2 circle of healing priests and one holy pally. During the void bolts, each priest keeps a group up while the pally keeps the tank up. The shadow priest is also a great benefit for this fight.

It is a challenging fight to learn - especially for healers - and once you kill him, Zul'Jin is basically the bonus loot.

Which ads are you CC'ing/killing? From left to right, regardless of which ads they are, it is ALWAYS:

Sheep -> Sleep -> Banish -> Shackle

We typically keep the sheep and banish CC'd the whole fight, kill the sleep first, then the shack, then the boss. The first add should die before the first volley of bolts.

[Fridmarr]

Kill all the adds first with focused damage. Hex Lord doesn't do the power drain (not the siphon) until he's around 80%, so there's not much of a hurry on him until you get to that point. Once you hit 80 he starts doing more damage and you start doing less after each power drain, so at that point you want to be going balls to the wall. Having your DPS not being concerned with CC is helpful.

Both pallys should run concentration aura so the healers can heal through the spirit bolts easier. Towards the end as his damage done is climbing the druid can pop tranquility which is really effective against a spirit bolt, and a pally can always bubble heal so he doesn't take damage himself. Obviously the priest will be using his aoe healing and the druid should try to have HoTs up when the spirit bolts hit. That's probably a good time for the Shadow Priest to do his vampiric embrace healing thing too.

[Sthallas]

Alright, what the HELL is needed for this guy? We went into ZA on Thursday with:

2 tanks (me and a bear who is better geared then I am)
3 healers (priest/druid/paladin, ranging from 3/6 SSC gear to BT gear)
2 mages
1 rogue
1 hunter
1 shadow priest

We ended up missing the third timed chest by maybe 2 minutes (freakin' scout gauntlet gave us some crap luck), and wiped four times on Hex Lord without barely making a dent in him (last and best try was 70%). Our strategy's solid, the CC on the adds was holding, he just wittled us down until two or three people bit it, and we'd wipe. It looked like our healers were exhausting themselves, but that seems so strange to me, considering they had not only a spriest, but have managed to keep their resources up far longer in other situations.

This bastard's a major roadblock, and I can't see any way around him.

If you have BT people make sure they all put on the neck/cape for a good boost to shadow resist. Dampen Magic on all but the tank helps too if you need help on the Spirit Bolts. Other than that Prayer of Mending spam during the bolts can help a lot as could chain heals if you ever bring a shaman. A paladin healer (other than being uninteruptable) is probably least optimal choice for a Malacrass healer.

As was previously stated he does not do his Soul Drain (increase his dmg and decrease your dmg) until he 1st hits 80% so while killing 2 adds is ok if you have great dps and can watch the adds even during pushback, normally (even with T6 dps/heals) we kill 3 or 4 (usually all 4) just because when you do that you do so much more dps on Mal that it makes up for the time it takes to kill the adds.

I tank Mal and the feral druid picks up the adds 1 at a time, with your group make up you should kill the elemental/demon 1st then the Dragonkin/Snake (this one should have been sleeped at the start) and then the Undead (chain shackled). Either leave Thurg/Allyson chain sheeped or kill it, up to you. Then once the adds are dealt with get your dps on Mal, make sure your rogue saves his kicks for Mal's heals and win.

[Dazhbog]

Alright. Invis is closest to what we're actually doing, and there's some good stuff here. I think, though, the biggest issue is survivability; any one person biting it means we're trying again. I think we have the DPS to burn all the adds away first (which may help), so we'll see.

[Sthallas]

Alright. Invis is closest to what we're actually doing, and there's some good stuff here. I think, though, the biggest issue is survivability; any one person biting it means we're trying again. I think we have the DPS to burn all the adds away first (which may help), so we'll see.

2 additional tips:

1. Have everyone put on a bit more stam gear (PvP gear or whatever) and bless Kings on everyone if survivability is an issue as losing a tiny bit of dps is worth having an extra 1k hp perhaps at your gear level.

2. Only having that 1 interrupt makes this more difficult but I believe the druid can Maim or Feral Charge (I can't remember which) to interrupt his heals also. Otherwise if there is way for you to get another interrupt in there it would help you alot.

[Fridmarr]

Alright. Invis is closest to what we're actually doing, and there's some good stuff here. I think, though, the biggest issue is survivability; any one person biting it means we're trying again. I think we have the DPS to burn all the adds away first (which may help), so we'll see.

2 additional tips:

1. Have everyone put on a bit more stam gear (PvP gear or whatever) and bless Kings on everyone if survivability is an issue as losing a tiny bit of dps is worth having an extra 1k hp perhaps at your gear level.

2. Only having that 1 interrupt makes this more difficult but I believe the druid can Maim or Feral Charge (I can't remember which) to interrupt his heals also. Otherwise if there is way for you to get another interrupt in there it would help you alot.

The counterspells will interrupt I believe. When he drains a pally, he tends to consecrate and then follow that with a heal, so ranged interrupts are pretty handy for that.

[Jhereg]

Sounds like you may be low on DPS, are you tanking? or is the bear? How many volleys are you getting and at what %? Is he healing? What class's abilities are you having trouble with? Remember your shadow prot?

Give us a bit more info to work with. Having 3 t5-t6 healers lose people early in the fight sounds like very slow dps and/or very bad healers. We routinely run with 2 late t5-t6 healers and me in random healing gear with a warr tanking with no one dying. Three dedicated healers should have no problem whatsoever.

For reference, we CC 3 adds thru, and just kill the imp at start generally.

[Dazhbog]

The bear is tanking, I'm holding those adds we kill in a gear mix and flipping to healing weapons once they're down for spot healing (and snagging sheeps when they break). DPS hosed everything else in the instance without much trouble at all, so I don't think that was a major problem. Adds getting loose tended to cause enough confusion that I'd put forward killing them all, if/when we try again; our mages are squishy as all hell, and tend to bite it. So are two of the three healers, come think of it.

We normally gank the first add before the first bolts, and the second just after, then leave the last two (sheeps, in this case). Things usually go fine up till that point, and then he'll drain me and melt the bear/any interrupts with consecrate, or a priest and cause havoc that way. Him draining a mage also tended to hurt, mainly because it adds to the overall raid damage and wears on the healers' mana pools.

[Barristan]

I'd probably have you tank it assuming your gear isn't terrible. You already have 3 healers which is about max for what you want in ZA. If you're tanking then the feral druid can do some damage, you don't want to try to outlast Hex Lord, you want to beat him before you're OOM.

[enbee]

Use 1 tank (feral gogo dps gear I guess), druid + you take care of the melee group on spirit bolts, priest take care of caster group, cc as many adds as you can without it becoming too much to handle (you should kill the one you shackle and the one you sleep, banish/sheep can be kept all fight), nuke and kick heals, collect loot!

[Fridmarr]

Dazhbog, everyone should be able to get out of consecrate with only one tick going off, if any. It hits pretty hard, so everyone has to run as soon as they see it. Generally the abilities that he steals that you really need to be mindful of are the following:

Paladin - Move out of Consecrate, Steal/Purge wings, Interrupt heals.
Priest - Dispell MC, Interrupt Heals
Warrior - Move out of whirlwind, Watch out for spell reflect
Druid - Dispell HoTs he puts on himself
Shaman - Kill Totems, Interrupt Heals
Warlock - Avoid Rain of Fire, Decurse Curse of Doom

The big thing is keeping the melee out of the AoE's and getting heals interrupted/removed. Have folks equip stam/pvp gear if needed, losing DPS is a big problem in this fight so it's worth it if they give up a little for more stamina than dying early to spirit bolts. To that end, I'd also recommend the Druid DPSing with you tanking as others have pointed out. This fight becomes a DPS race once he hits 80%, he's going to be harder with a healing heavy raid.

[Sthallas]

Dazhbog, everyone should be able to get out of consecrate with only one tick going off, if any. It hits pretty hard, so everyone has to run as soon as they see it. Generally the abilities that he steals that you really need to be mindful of are the following:

Paladin - Move out of Consecrate, Steal/Purge wings, Interrupt heals.
Priest - Dispell MC, Interrupt Heals
Warrior - Move out of whirlwind, Watch out for spell reflect
Druid - Dispell HoTs he puts on himself
Shaman - Kill Totems, Interrupt Heals
Warlock - Avoid Raid of Fire, Decurse Curse of Doom

The big thing is keeping the melee out of the AoE's and getting heals interrupted/removed. Have folks equip stam/pvp gear if needed, losing DPS is a big problem in this fight so it's worth it if they give up a little for more stamina than dying early to spirit bolts. To that end, I'd also recommend the Druid DPSing with you tanking as others have pointed out. This fight becomes a DPS race once he hits 80%, he's going to be harder with a healing heavy raid.

One thing to add to the above. You have 2 mages in the raid so I would recommend that they spellsteal Wings when he syphons a paladin and spellsteal Lifebloom when he syphons a Druid. Both of those worth stealing.

[Dazhbog]

Hmm, that's a thought, I think they were getting purged (gogo Arcane Shot) rather then stolen. The Lifebloom in particular might be handy.

[Pallypete]

Our guild was in a similar situation as you, we could easily beat all 4 of the animal bosses, but we were stuck on Malacrass for months. He's a big increase in difficulty compared to the other bosses. A lot of it can come down to luck too, some of the classes he channels are easier to deal with than others (druid and hunter for example are super easy to deal with, Paladin SUCKS). If he's always spamming paladin, it's not gonna be a fun fight.