Hex Lord Malacrass - does BoS work on spirit bolts?

[Kaelthar_]

Had our first attempt on him last night, dps wasn't getting adds down fast enough and/or healers were going oom after many rounds of spirit bolts. Think the lowest we got him was 48%.

Then I saw that dampen magic is recommended for everyone but the main tank.

Made me wonder if Blessing of Sanctuary would cut 80 damage off of ever spirit bolt pulse? Has anyone tried this? does it work?

Thanks.

Our group was
myself on Malacrass
prot warrior on adds
holy paladin
holy priest
resto druid
mage
mage
fury warior
enhancement shaman
rogue

[Jeada]

Kinda in the same boat with spirit bolts, But honestly I think the issue
was more people wernt getting thier hp to a resonable level issue.

Sacrifice would prolly take damage off per pulse. But!
Are you judging light? I've found that to make a huge difference
in keeping melee alive during spirit bolt. (not nescessarly healing them, just giving them a chance to saok bolts w/o dying)

Counting Tanks I see 5 melee's in your group.

[Kaelthar_]

Yeah too melee heavy maybe.

[Jeada]

Yeah too melee heavy maybe.

Nah, just gotta be smart melee, (Ie: avoid Concencrate, careful with thorns) Dual wielders can proc a lot from a judged light.

We've had a priest shadowbuff/fort outside before the atempts
That help a lot also.

Putting sacrifice on some one may work... but with all the heavy aoe damage, I wouldn't want to take anymore damage then nesessary
since healers gotta keep an eye on the whole raid more.

[Wraith]

I have not seen anything about using Blessing of Sanc on this guy yet. With the 120 from Dampen Magic and if you can get another 80 from Blessing of Sanc, you can reduce each bolt by 200 before SR.

I won't be able to try this and log the fight for a while yet. Anyone else know if this will help reduce the damage?

[Lore]

BoSanc is awesome for situations like that. The trick is getting it on everyone without giving up a more important blessing.

[Magnusharkov]

I've read conflicting reports on whether or not dampen and sanctuary work on spirit bolts. Id be interested to hear a definitive answer.

[Jeada]

BoSanc is awesome for situations like that. The trick is getting it on everyone without giving up a more important blessing.

hrm, yea I been rolling this through my head also..
say 2 pallys, so thats 2 blessings, what do you give up?
I think it's safe to go with not putting salv on dps since in general
Guilds like mine or Kaelthar_ will burn least 2 adds down, so MT should enough threat on Hexx.

What about shadow protection pots?

[Alostrael]

We tried using it once, it doesn't work on the spirit bolts. People were taking the same amount of damage.

[Bard]

I've read conflicting reports on whether or not dampen and sanctuary work on spirit bolts. Id be interested to hear a definitive answer.

Dampen Magic can help a little when your focus is surviving the spirit bolts, and healing back up afterwards. This is the unfortuate healing approach when running with cast-time healers (shammies, paladins).

Dampen Magic is definitely not recommended when you are running with a far more ideal healer setup for ZA: 1 resto druid and 1 CoH priest. These classes have instant cast hots and aoe heals that are easily cast DURING spirit bolts.

Recommend running all of ZA with resto druid and CoH priest. Very good mana regeneration means little or no need to drink during the timed run.

[Seloei]

Paladins and shamans can also get quite close to the 100% spellpushback cap. Turn on concentration aura and tank him (or the adds) near the healers so they can keep healing in spirit bolts.

[Invisusira]

BoSanc is awesome for situations like that. The trick is getting it on everyone without giving up a more important blessing.

Blessing of Sac, Freedom, and Protection should be on a separate "blessing limiter" than the other blessings imo. I really wish Blizz would do this, it would make them so much more usable.

[Bard]

Paladins and shamans can also get quite close to the 100% spellpushback cap. Turn on concentration aura and tank him (or the adds) near the healers so they can keep healing in spirit bolts.

The point really is cast time - pushback just makes the paladin or shaman healer's job even harder. If your healers heal with cast times, dampen magic will help your raid survive the spirit bolts.

On the other hand, with absolutely no cast times, instant hots can be thrown on every one in the raid, and CoH can be cast on an entire group, to combat spirit bolts. Do not use dampen magic in this case.

[2ndNin]

Pop concentration aura for your shaman, no pushback, chainheal ftw.

Change auras in combat, swap blessings if needed, keep sotc up till you go low mana, then swap over. Standard stuff this fight isn't hard, its a combination dps / survival race. Worst problem is mages (massive single target damage near / after a spirit phase) and letting your melee know which consecration is yours (if in doubt stand on the tank, I don't stand in his).

Three key aspects of the fight:

1) AoE healing / Pots etc, keep people up, people should blow pots and nightmare seeds if needed to let the healers keep them up.

2) Interrupt his heals, you won't win this fight if you don't, its possible to dps down 10% a set of bolts if you interrupt his heals and win (we did it once, its sucked, but it worked), faster is better but missing a heal sets you back more than more dps does.

3) Watch out for mages and consecration, thorns is ok, the warrior is ok, melee believing that consecration is yours is pretty much a wipe... Shamans, Hunters, Priests, Warriors, are joke drains, if you get those you win basically without issue, paladins kill melee, rogues risk the mt, mages can kill fast, and locks aoe reducing the effectiveness of aoe healing like coh. Make sure people realise whats happening and keep their own health up, its stupid to say again, but their health is the key.