[10/25] General Vezax

[Karaghiosis]

Couple of things for those doing General.
I normally tank but for this fight the other tank, a Druid in this case, solo tanks for our general hardmode 10 man. We dont kite him as he just 20% shield walls every surge.
In addition, I respec holy on this fight to something kinda wierd at first glance but seems to help quite a bit.

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xm ... 0000000000

explanation: as a paladin healer this fight is dumb so you need all the tricks you can find. unlike druids and disc priests you cant really make a decent use of the shadow patches as sacred shield isnt enough (arguable use through eating jotw debuff but didnt test it). holy shock isnt helpful since it's too inefficient. similar issue with even holy light so the only thing we're really missing in holy tree is the 20% sp from intellect which compared to the gains- not a huge loss. Prot tree is mainly for divine sac/improved sacred & devotion, 4/5 str is covered later. Ret is standard crit bonus + sanctity because more raid dmg is nice (if no ret).

if you glyph for seal of blood, the mana return DOES work on this fight, so the str talents are used for filler in prot and because it slightly raises blood dmg. Alternate divine sac and hand of sac (talented to 40%) on tank every surge so the tank is mitigating 60% surge dmg (can bubble/HoP whenever possible if not, be have other healer or healthstone). Stop cast flash of light to keep tank at 90-95% health (dont overheal). judge light every cooldown and melee as much as possible for SoB mana back. we have our healers ignore the dps until the animus spawns.

Our 2nd healer is a druid, so he can clearcast proc then lifebloom dance with the shadow patch and maintain about 80% mana until animus spawns. I think i was generally down to about 60-70% mana when animus spawned. blow imp loh on tank for armor cd (keep bubble/divine sac for this phase as well). on our kill the druid ended up dying right after animus so i had to blow rest of mana healing tank but as long as dps dodges shadow crash tank takes minimal damage.

So, while most people are finding holy paladins helpless on this fight I think there's alot they can still bring but it does require some talent/glyph adjustment away from the standard. This may be less successful depending on raid composition and has only been tested on 10man hard mode.

[Donahu]

Good day everyone. I tend to avoid posting, but have been reading for only god knows how long, but my guild has finally hit a brick wall. We tend to call this brick wall "General Vezax".

First, the guild. We're small, tight-knit, don't keep a big roster so we tend to have dual specs on a lot of fights. For this fight, we tend to have available for healing -

Healers -

2 Holy Paladins - No alt specs
2 Holy Priests - One can and does go Disc when needed, but skilled as Holy
1 Disc Priest - Doesn't do the holy thing
1 Resto Druid - Moderate Feral
1 Resto Shaman - Very good Elemental
1 Boomkin - Sucky healer, that'd be myself
1 Enh Shaman - Still rocking nothing but Naxx 10/25 but skilled

Looking at suggestions of what they have seen work and what they recommend bringing out of the above.

I am finally at the point where I believe it is just my bad decisions with raid composition/positioning/kiting vs. non-kiting causing us to stall on General Vezax, especially after reading what I have read today.

The last few posters have made it sound as if they bring 2 healers for 25m until Animus spawns? One post mentioned two Holy Paladins. Another a Holy Paladin and a Resto Druid w/ Clearcasting procs. The rest of the healers just sit around and do nothing until needed? The guy tends to hit fairly hard and I don't see two healers keeping up with his damage. What we have been doing is having a rotation going of 3 and 3 healing full time. Three heal while three do not. They grab a Saronite Cloud when low and swap roles. Also, while you're at it, how are you handling interrupts? That is the biggest reason we fail each time with 4 interrupts swapping cd's.

If someone could point me in the direction of a good site to look up more detailed strategies than Bosskillers, Stratfu, Wowwiki, I could really use the help. Or if someone already has enough experience farming the fight and would care to share raid compositions and tips/tricks they know work for mana management, I would greatly appreciate it.

Sorry about the long post, one of the reasons I do not post here often.

[Karaghiosis]

Donahu
Sorry if it was misleading, my previous post for 2 healers was for 10man not 25.

10 man I would use only two healers specially for normal mode because there is basically no raid dmg. interrupt flame whatever and have ranged stack and dodge shadow crash, solo tank it and blow CDs on surge prob not worth kiting.

25 man would take your standard 5-6 healers. Whether or not you decide to kite him is up for debate. Depending on your tank I would argue for not kiting and just healing through surge.

Generally your strongest healers for this fights will be
Disc priests - they can use full str shields from inside shadow patch
Resto Druids - they can clear cast proc and then jump into shadow patch, cast lifebloom, bounce out for full burst. done correctly this can even gain mana.

Somewhere below those two
Holy Paladin (Glyph SoB for mana returns, external tank CDs, sacred shield & flash of light are very efficient plus generally geared for high mana pool)
Resto Shaman (dont know them well enough)
Holy Priest (dont know if they have tricks, but seems unnecessary since again minimal raid dmg if raid is doing their job)

Offspec healers
Ret paladin (jotw provides a heal 'buff' that reduces healing significantly) may be viable in 10 man, likely too small healing to help in 25.
enhance shaman (or is it ele) - same issue as ret paladin

edit:
given your available resources I would take 2 disc, 1 druid, 1 sham, 2 paladin
consider having at least 1 paladin respec 51/20/0 for divine sac/improved shield, if using HL, then glyph seal of wisdom may provide better mana than Seal of Blood returns, I havent done the maths.

[Duzzit]

all i can say is, damn, its like a meteor shower punching me when im tanking him -.-(on 10 :S).

[Kezia]

We did this fight last night on Vezax with me tanking and running 7 healers. On our kill we only had 1 death and we were ~2mins ahead of the enrage timer.

I assigned healers and melee to stand in melee range, and tanked Vezax in the center of the room. I split the ranged dps (11 ranged) into two equally strong groups on either the left or right of Vezax. Each group was only responsible for shadow crashes on their side to minimize movement and room for error. Those with Mark of the Faceless were to turn and run directly out of the group; everyone else stacked in the appropriate shadow crash.

About every 12% or so we had a healer assigned to call out for the Saronite Vapors to be broken out. I had a hunter assigned to killing the ones closest to Vezax (a few died in melee range so I had to reposition the boss slightly for melee).

I did tank through the enrages, again to minimize movement and room for error (this time with interrupts). I had a cooldown rotation. We had 3 resto druids, 1 holy pally, 2 holy priests, and a disc priest, along with a ret pally. The cooldown rotation went like this:
Divine Protection first surge, pain suppression/guardian spirit second, Divine Protection third, guardian spirit/ret pally bubblesac fourth, Divine Protection fifth, pain suppression/guardian spirit sixth.
It worked fairly well and I had no issues with healing.

I was planning on respeccing solely for Vezax ( http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAMuMGsIufdvo0hbM ) but completely forgot as I started raid invites so I tanked him in my normal tanking spec. I did have an issue with mana once or twice (I was completely oom for a bit) but threat wasn't that bad. Boomkins and mages were riding my threat but no one pulled so it's doable; I would go 2/2 Spiritual Attunement, though tanking through Surges restores a ton of mana through SA provided you don't have an unlucky streak of avoidance.

I'll see if I can get our World of Logs for the fight and post it a little bit later.

[Donahu]

Thank you Karaghiosis. A few more if you don't mind?

I've read people clamoring about Disc priests for this fight the whole time but I just do not understand why.

They can stand in the Darkness for max power shields, but to what purpose? The Weakened Soul effect prevents more than 1 priest from being used at a time and it has a ridiculous cool down.

Maybe I am missing something. Does the darkness buff the power of the shield? Or are disc priests just there for their Pain Suppresion and can shield people in the green stuff maybe? I suppose that would be worth a shot.

Also, the druid mechanic. They melee for a clearcast, run to a darkness, cast a life bloom and run back to melee? They'll gain mana this way yes, but is their HPS going to suffer too much?

How are you guys rotating the healers to the green pools? We had a healer assigned to calling out individual healers to go stand in the green stuff as he saw fit. The healers stand in there for 5-6 debuffs and then come out but they've only gained about 4-6k mana. Maybe our tanks are missing something here but the heals required seem to be a bit ridiculous for only gaining that much mana back every 12% or so on the boss?

Sorry for the slew of questions, my guild has been stuck here for 3 weeks now and it's getting frustrating. Thanks for any and all replies.

[Corpsicle]

Disc priests have no cooldown on PW: Shield because of talents, although weakened soul remains. In our 10 man, the disc priests hops into shadow crashes and shields, then hops out of it and casts penance or flash heal as needed. He spends the majority of the time casting shields I believe and yes, the shields are at full power regardless of where they are cast - shadow crash lowers healing done, not damage absorbed.

[Joanadark]

I've read people clamoring about Disc priests for this fight the whole time but I just do not understand why.

It wouldnt make sense unless you've healed the fight before.

Tank healing on Vezax is rediculously annoying because of the nature of the incoming damage. It comes in big spikey bursts, that are completely random. But at the same time the tank can go 30 seconds or more without even taking damage at all. They can also get hit 3 times in a row for 25k.

One of the advantages of a Disc Priest is that shields cant overheal. They are like garenteed effective healing that you can cast preemptively.

[Donahu]

Yes, but only one person should be taking damage if not attempting for hard mode, or does the shield prevent the damage from the mark that drains hp to the boss and therefore prevents a ton of healing? That is why I don't get why bringing a disc priest over any other healer is preferred or more importantly, why bring two to the raid at all? I think I am really missing something about Shadow Crashes here now...

[Serelynn]

Again, what Corpsicle said. While in the puddle from Shadow Crash, all your spells cost much less mana, but healing effects are reduced. This doesn't alter PW:S, which means a Disc priest can cast it indefinitely throughout the fight without worrying about mana. It's huge since it means your other healers can wait till things get hectic (if doing hard mode) or just be available to help top off the tank with HoTs and mana efficient heals.

A Holy Paladin stacking crit does pretty well in Shadow Crash too, they will heal for less, but can cast Holy Light as fast as possible and with a high crit chance, still heal for a solid amount.

[Donahu]

Ahh, so the boss hits fairly slow then and the damage comes in gaps? That would explain a lot and why the healers were failing at making the right adjustments for this fight. I will look into their healing and see if I need to get on 'em with the stopcasting macros and less overhealing. I know on our first night the overhealing from the resto druids was plain ridiculous and they never got in shadow crashes.

[Donahu]

Yes, I see the benefits of having one Disc priest now. A second is kind of iffy though? Or do people use them so the other healers can stay in the Saronite clouds longer with the Disc Priest keeping them topped? Seems like that might work, but is two one too many then? Thanks.

[Kezia]

Disc priests are good in any situation if they're healing the MT imo. Last night on Vezax I was absorbing ~12k worth of damage through bubbles/sacred shield.

As for the green saronite pools: we didn't have a rotation for the healers. Since the healers were all in melee range and saronite pools were spawned within the 15 yard "safe zone" where Shadow Crash/Mark can't be cast, we just had healers clump up in the pools for 6-7 stacks.

[Cema]

Our guild have some problems with this boss on 10 man

1st - I run oom quickly . For this point I think I'll stop using consecrate on this boss next time and try to use a black pool

2nd - The kiting part. Nobody here seems to kite the boss during the surge of darkness, but we do cause I just can't hold the double damage thing ( 42k hp around 28% dodge and 19% parry, with buff obviously)
The problem is that when I kite the boss I run out of range of one or two healer and it makes the fight much more chaotic. Healers have much trouble to heal me after the kitting and due to the distance between the boss and me I am sometime targeted by a shadow crash

I'm a looking for fantastic advices from people who have already downed this guy with the kiting strat :p

[Faro]

I'm a looking for fantastic advices from people who have already downed this guy with the kiting strat :p

Communication. You need to tell your healers *exactly* which direction you're kiting so they can be ready. I recommend you ask them for input so they can direct you to them and the green clouds. Use cardinal directions, North, South, East, West, not "i'm taking him over here" or "back there" "near the thing".