General Vezax: Mana issues

[Dem]

Thanks for the information. Hard to tell as it was our first shot at him. Gives me 1 less button to press though
SA 2/2 worked then.

[Seloei]

You should still keep up DP for the 3% damage reduction and use JoL instead, for some extra healing. Dps should only get healed by that unless they are stupid and get hit by the crashes.

[Dem]

Guarded by the Light 2/2 - .......... gives a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy .........

[Seloei]

But during surge of darkness you are running out of melee range for atleast 13 seconds(3s cast, 10s duration), quite often it falls off if you forget to start with judgement to refresh it, unless you are risky and don't run too far away for it to fall off. I usually ran so far away that it fell off about 9/10 times, kept on forgetting to put it back up also. While running back i was eyeing Hammer of Justice also, incase the melee dps were 'left behind' when he gallops back to melee range after surge is over.

[Dem]

We killed him in 3 shots tonight, 50%, 2%, death using the 10 man strat. Tank stays in on Surge. Bubble wall every other Surge, healer CDs and trinkets every other Surge. Threat is not an issue. Mimi was a 1 shot. Yogg is next.
HoJ improved is specced but with the GCD isn't that useful until a decent threat lead is maintained and you can drop your rotation to use it. Trust the melee to do it and give them their own vent channel to sort it out.

[Kethion]

If you can afford it, drop Consecrate.

Doing this is the most effective method of circumventing the issue I've found (without resorting to respeccing into 2/2 SA). I've tanked it a few times in 10 man with both caster and melee stacked groups. I really haven't had any threat issues in either group when ignoring consecrate, though avoidance streaks can still run me dry at times. I'd think 25 man would have fewer mana issues because he hits about 50% harder there.

[Mithos]

Mana really sucks for this guy whilst tanking I've found, mainly on 10 man. On 25 man he hits sufficiently hard to keep you up more often than not, although an avoidance streak followed by a kiting phase really drains you. I kept 1/2 SA but had to use BoK (on 10 man) since only one pala, also had a disc priest. Dropping consecration is the best way I've found to keep reasonable mana on both modes.

However, in the end I just went ret . What's weird is that JotW's function seems to have been boosted here...definately recall gaining like 2k ish mana every judge against the normal 1k ish.

[theckhd]

I found that even with 1/2 SA, I had absolutely no problem tanking Vezax in 25-man, at least as far as mana goes. I rarely dropped below 25% mana, and when I did I simply dropped Consecration from my rotation for a few cycles.

The problem I did run into was that after each kite phase, Vezax would 2-shot me. I'd receive two 25-27k hits in a row, which would kill me unless I avoided one of them. His normal hits are around 20k, which leads me to believe that a debuff of some sort is dropping off, probably demo shout. The Surge buff was definitely off as well, otherwise the hits would be closer to 40k. His attack speed is 1.71, so JotJ only slows it to 1.88, which doesn't buy the healers that much extra time. Usually I would get a big heal right before the first hit and die without seeing a large heal between the two.

After a few attempts of that, we let the DK tank it, since he can pop a cooldown (Icebound i think) after every kite phase, and reduce the incoming damage. The drawback is that his threat output is far lower than mine on this fight, and often threat-caps the dps.

This is one of those few cases where the HoSalv glyph might come in useful. I maintained a pretty solid threat lead during the attempts I tanked, so I may be able to afford the 20% threat hit.

Or I could get on my warrior's ass and make sure he keeps demo shout up...

[Candiru]

Demo shout is the one debuff I really wish paladins had access to.

Warlocks can do it, but at the cost of a curse which is quite a high DPS loss
Hunters can do it, but they have to use a rubbish pet which is a DPS loss.
Druid tanks can do it, and warrior tanks can do it for a minimal threat loss.
DPS warriors can keep it up, but if they are keeping up sunder armour, demoshout and commanding shout it gets to be quite a lot for one DPSer to do!

Why can't vindication (2 points in ret) act as a demo shout?

[inthedrops]

Demo shout is the one debuff I really wish paladins had access to.

Warlocks can do it, but at the cost of a curse which is quite a high DPS loss
Hunters can do it, but they have to use a rubbish pet which is a DPS loss.
Druid tanks can do it, and warrior tanks can do it for a minimal threat loss.
DPS warriors can keep it up, but if they are keeping up sunder armour, demoshout and commanding shout it gets to be quite a lot for one DPSer to do!

Why can't vindication (2 points in ret) act as a demo shout?

I agree. I did this without a warrior in the raid and it was very very scary.

[Panzerdin]

Or just roll it into JotJ so Ret doesn't get 'overpowered'.

[Serelynn]

On 25 man, in the handful of attempts we've had, mana hasn't been much of a problem. On 10 man, I was OOM by the time he was at 70% and could only throw some SHoR and HoTR for threat when I had the mana. It was much easier for our DPS warrior to tank the boss on 10 man. It's unfortunate since avoidance really does wonders on General Vezax.

Speaking of CoW, we always have an affliction warlock spec'd into Improved CoW - on 25 man it cuts off something like 3,000 damage a swing. It's worth any amount of DPS loss from a single warlock. Now, what I wish was more spread out was the 3% reduced melee hit chance that Hunters and Balance Druids (without Insect Swarm glyphed) can apply.

[Dem]

As noted, you can simply stay in on Surge, even in 25. Bubble every other surge, use trinket/s + healer CD for the rest.
You can maintain a normal threat rotation then. Our DK tank does a good job of staying second on aggro in case something goes wrong.

[Cylan]

Seal of Light, Judgement of Light, dropped Consecration from rotation, ran away during surges, Blessing of Sanctuary.

Cake!

[Panzerdin]

As noted, you can simply stay in on Surge, even in 25. Bubble every other surge, use trinket/s + healer CD for the rest.
You can maintain a normal threat rotation then. Our DK tank does a good job of staying second on aggro in case something goes wrong.

Given how hard he hits, this isn't much of a difference. It's just making you more likely to die.