Hex Lord, WTF?

[Zhalseran]

Hex lord is a bitch, to be sure. Not a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said, but I have found that killing 2 adds and CCing the other 2 tends to work the best, and making sure to burn cooldowns relatively early in so your not drained when you do it is helpful as well.

I've never done this fight on my Paladin, but the Paladin drain is a pain, to be sure. Interrupting in general is much easier if you have a shaman who can earthshock. As a Rogue it can be very tricky. Keep in mind for Paladin form that he seems to cast holy light immediately after consecration. I've never once missed a kick by hitting the button immediately after I see the wings go up. The heals in general are integral as anything that lengtnens the fight should be avoided at all costs, since it just gets harder the longer it takes.

Also you tanking Malacrass is a good idea once you get the healing situation figured out. A feral OT/DPS is going to be much more useful than prot heals. The fight is rough on healers but its a DPS race more than anything.

[Halisstra]

Last night were our first attempts, and kill at Hex lord.

Prot Paly
Prot War (in dps gear)

DPS War
Lock
Mage
Hunter
Hunter

Resto Shm
Holy Paly
COH priest.

One of the hunters was even terribly undergeared.

We went with the kill all four adds strategy and I think it worked great. Two down before the first spirit bolts, two down before the second group. Make sure your DPS really lays in to the adds, minus cooldowns which should open up on the boss just before 80%.

After a heartbreaking 2% wipe on our second attempt (flame totem heh), we got him on the fifth or so.

We also used AMPLIFY magic on everyone. In testing it appeared that dampen, nor amplify had any effect on the spirit bolts and since everyone is eating so much healing and not really taking any dmg via spells (interrupts ftw) it was very good.

Also def skip on the salvations, no need for it here kings is the most important. You should have a big agro lead. It's pretty much tank and spank after the adds and depends on your healers and interrupts being on time.

(CoH priest makes it trivial with the healers we had setup, COH priest takes the caster group, paladin and shaman took care of the tank group with chain and FoL.)

Edit: Oh and don't forget to JoL helps the melees mostly heal a little during bolts.

[aureon]

Blessing
Of
Sanctuary.
-80 to each bolt is huge =)

[Tiandelin]

Blessing
Of
Sanctuary.
-80 to each bolt is huge =)

I'm fairly certain that it doesn't work that way. We tried that once and didn't notice a significant difference in the damage that spirit bolts were doing. It's probably -80 to the channeled spell, which is negligible.

We usually run with three pallies, which would make Malacrass reeeeally fun if we weren't in Hyjal/BT with access to SR gear now, which makes the fight beyond trivial. We also kill all the adds before starting on Malacrass to avoid unexpected CC breaks during spirit bolts.

[Questioner]

Make sure your DPS really lays in to the adds, minus cooldowns which should open up on the boss just before 80%.

You mean just AFTER 80%, which is when he starts his power drain. If you use them before 80%, it just means you make him stronger faster.

[2ndNin]

So is there some kind of "ideal" party to start killing the hex lord to get experience with? I really want to take some shots at him but I also want to stand a good chance of downing him. Typically we try and take a group like the following to ZA for the 4 gods run:

Prot Pala
Bear / Prot Warrior

Shadow Priest
Mage
Lock (could be 2nd mage)
Hunter (Halazzi for tranq)
open slot

Priest
healer slot 2
healer slot 3

Is there anything we really need to take / prefer to take to the Hex Lord?

[Sthallas]

My recommendation for a starting group:
Prot Pala - MT (move yourself to the heal/caster group and put on Concentration Aura)
Bear - Have him tank the adds in mostly dps gear then switch to cat for Mal.

Shadow Priest - lovely
Mage - yes pls.
Lock (could be 2nd mage) - 2nd mage is better for a group starting out Mal, more sheep spam and no lock soul drain.
Hunter (Halazzi for tranq) - Remember to move from the traps before they arm.
open slot - I like rogues, but a 2nd hunter or DPS warrior is good too.

Priest - CoH or PoM spam during Spirit Bolts.
healer slot 2 - Shaman - Chain Heal
healer slot 3 - Druid - HoTs
(we've never brought a holy pally to ZA since the patch opened it, not that you can't they just don't bring anything to the table to help you get the fight down)

Make sure everyone has Prayer of Shadow Protection. Interrupt heals, spellsteal the lifebloom/wings, don't auto-attack when he drains the druid and move out of his Consecrate if he drains a pally = win.

[Dorvan]

Well, if you're really on the edge of getting him down, sub'ing out your 2nd tank is a good idea (or having him be feral is fine too, he can just DPS on Hex Lord). Other than that, group looks good. As far as Healers, CoH priests are amazing on this fight, Paladins are pretty lackluster....Druids and Shaman fall in between.

For your last DPS slot take a melee, and their DPS isn't disrupted by the spirit bolts.

[Huon]

yea, last night we attempted him for the first time and we downed him 5th attempt.

we have shaman, druid and priest for healers. Priest respected CoH on 5th attempt and BAM cakesauce.

we killed 2 adds, keep 2 cc up and burn him, I was dispelling moonfires and other magic crap and keeping Imp JotCrusader for extra raid 3% crit.

I think I was usefull overall, dispell takes a lot of mana and its better if you waste yours instead of the real healers.

cheers

[Amaranthine]

Cauldron's of Major Shadow Protection, have everyone eat one, then grab another out, it absorbs 2 of the spirit bolt phases if you do that, and makes the fight trivial til your raid learns how to do it without em.

[Fridmarr]

Well, if you're really on the edge of getting him down, sub'ing out your 2nd tank is a good idea (or having him be feral is fine too, he can just DPS on Hex Lord). Other than that, group looks good. As far as Healers, CoH priests are amazing on this fight, Paladins are pretty lackluster....Druids and Shaman fall in between.

For your last DPS slot take a melee, and their DPS isn't disrupted by the spirit bolts.

Also, malacrass is pretty soft armor wise, so Melee tends to do pretty good damage on him. They aren't able to stay quite as hard on the boss though, so it may even out though.

[Bughead]

Is it pretty much a ' must' for everyone to have a certain amount of shadow resist gear on ? .... and if so would that include me (MT) as well ?

Our guild pretty much has the first 4 bosses here on farm , but our two attmpts at this boss didnt last very long. We are asking a priest to repec COH , and we're giving it another shot soon , but wasnt sure if there is a nessessity for shadow resist ( other than the priest buff)

[jere]

Well it isn't a must honestly. The times we have downed him have never included shadow resist (aside from the priest buff). He does do a lot of shadow damage though.

[sanctifico]

9/10 with Full SRes = win on this im the only one without Sres on when we do this.

[Madmordigan]

Is it pretty much a ' must' for everyone to have a certain amount of shadow resist gear on ? .... and if so would that include me (MT) as well ?

Our guild pretty much has the first 4 bosses here on farm , but our two attmpts at this boss didnt last very long. We are asking a priest to repec COH , and we're giving it another shot soon , but wasnt sure if there is a nessessity for shadow resist ( other than the priest buff)

Shadow Protection is plenty resist for this fight.

There is also no need to Respec CoH, imo (I've never had a priest with CoH in on that fight, even through progression... actually we didn't even have a priest this last clear).

Prayer of Mending and Renews are more than enough early in the fight. "Late" in the fight add PoH to help ensure the priest's party alive.

I would definately say that two interrupters and shad prot are more important for progression than a respecced priest.