Hex Lord Malacrass

[Omidin]

Two things made this fight significantly easier for us:

1.) We used a little bit of SR. Just enough to push us over the 2nd mark when buffed. The craftable neck and some AH greens.

2.) DPS DPS DPS. I was OTing this run and our guild MT warrior was tanking. I had us switch roles on this fight. I tanked HLM and he was add tank. He tanked in full dps gear. I didn't put salv on anyone (have a threat lead). This allowed us to have our highest dps possible (since we do some decent dps when MT). It has been the only way we've been able to beat the encounter.

How much SR did you find to be a good number w/o gimping yourselves too much?

[Blaen99]

A way we found to really cheese Malacrass was just take 2 holy priests and have them spec into CoH.

....

Never was there an easier fight.

[Sabindeus]

A way we found to really cheese Malacrass was just take 2 holy priests and have them spec into CoH.

....

Never was there an easier fight.

CoH ftw.

We did it with 1 CoH priest and 1 Chain heal spammy shaman. Worked fine.

[RunRabbit]

around 150 SR buffed mitigates half of the shadow aoe. (imp) dampen magic works fine aswell

[Questioner]

(imp) dampen magic works fine aswell

No, it doesn't. Dampen magic does nothing to it now.

[RunRabbit]

(imp) dampen magic works fine aswell

No, it doesn't. Dampen magic does nothing to it now.

hmm my mistake than, I thought I noticed see a slight more reduction when DM buffed.

[Myotis]

After many, many failed attempts using the tactic of crowd controlling the mobs and focusing all dps on the boss we decided to change tactic and are now taking the add's out first.

It seems that Malacrass does not start soul draining the party members until he reaches 80% health. Using this method his shadow bolts wont be to much of a problem whilst the add's are up as he wont be gaining any power, and after the add's are down the DPS dont have to worry about keeping CC up and can focus entirely on nuking the boss, therefore brining him down before the shadow bolts become to powerful.

We haven't actually downed him yet, having only switched to this tactic shortly before the end of our last raid, but i am confident that he will be going down next time we head in there.

Exactly what we are doing, taking down all the adds. That's how we kill him.

[YoYoMa]

It seems that Malacrass does not start soul draining the party members until he reaches 80% health.

I haven't been back to confirm this but can anybody say this is true for sure. I'm almost positive he would start his first soul drain after the first spirit bolt volley. And we had 0 dps on him at that point so he was sitting at 99% ish health.

[Stylaan]

It seems that Malacrass does not start soul draining the party members until he reaches 80% health.

I haven't been back to confirm this but can anybody say this is true for sure. I'm almost positive he would start his first soul drain after the first spirit bolt volley. And we had 0 dps on him at that point so he was sitting at 99% ish health.

I have never seen him Power Drain (the one where he siphons 1% damage from everyone and gains x% damage to himself depending on how many people are alive to be siphoned) before he hits 80%, though my group handles our adds very quickly so there may be a secondary condition (Ie. If 80% or X time elapses) but it is definately not on the first spirit bolt volley.

He'll soul drain right away (the one where he steals abilities, but doesn't gain a damage buff to himself).

[YoYoMa]

oops, was confusing that soul siphon and power drain. nvm. Too many draining/siphoning thing going on

[Demiblade]

Downed him finally by cheating a bit. I brought a 4th healer instead of an OT. We killed everything except the sheep and shackle targets.

If you will be the only tank and planning to tank everything, make sure you throw your shield on elemental for initial aggro before it gets banished. Get a hunter to MD you the other target that doesn't get hit by your shield. Else they can really screw up your raid when loose from cc, especially the elemental because it's hard to banish again during spirit bolts.

I noticed it's near impossible to kill him past 7th or 8th stage of debuff. Make sure to pop your shaman's heroism and trinkets once DPS begins on boss. Flask of chromatic wonder helps a lot for everyone.

This first progression kill dropped the Tuskguard for me, yet I'm not even sure if I should be really happy because it's a sidegrade at best from the tankatronic helm I was already wearing.

[Asterix]

We've downed this boss before but last night has some real problems before calling it. On our last attempt I buffed everyone with sanctuary to get the 80 less damage from all sources. After last night I'm skeptical that it works on the shadowbolt volley. On 2 of his volleys midway through I switched my buff from sanctuary to kings and saw no difference in the amount of damage being taken. Has anyone else noticed this and is there something I'm not understanding about the buff or fight?

[Maranus]

If you have 2 spriests (in the same group) have them drop form and use prayer of mending during spirit shards (they shouldn't run into mana problems =P)

[Invisusira]

A way we found to really cheese Malacrass was just take 2 holy priests and have them spec into CoH.

Never was there an easier fight.

QFT. That was how we first downed him.

Here's what we do, it's pretty easy once your healers get in the groove of the Spirit Bolts:

Sheep far left add (Ogre/Blood Elf). Keep it sheeped.
OT add to the left of Hex Lord (Snake/Dragonkin). Kill it first.
Banish add to the right of Hex Lord (Imp/Bog Lord). Keep it banished.
Shackle the far right add (Ghost/Big Zombie). Kill it second.

You should have the first add dead when he does his first Spirt Bolts. OT should go grab the undead add so the priest doesn't have to worry about shack'ing thru Bolts. After you kill this one, it's boss time.

When I pull, I tell the warlock to wait a second and let me pull the banish target over by where I tank the boss so that if the banish breaks I can keep it on me instead of it running off to a healer. This is bound to happen at some point since the Bolts interrupt things. Mage should be able to keep the other add sheep'd since you can re-up sheep before it wears off.

The class abilities are a mixed bag; some are easy and some are OP.
Druid: noone cares.
Hunter: DO NOT STEP ON THE ICE TRAP. DO NOT LET YOUR MELEE STEP ON THE ICE TRAP. It is an aoe Ice Block trap that will freeze you and all melee and deaggro the boss to a range/healer.
Mage: Horribly OP. Nothing you can do, healers have to be on top of their game.
Paladin: Wings + Concecrate are simotaneous and deadly. Melee needs to GTFO. Exaggerate the concecrate if you must (I tell them that when you see the angle wings pop his concecrate is ticking for 5k.)
Priest: A fear ward is nice here. Having more than one priest is also nice so that if one of them gets MC'd the other can remove it.
Rogue: noone cares.
Shammy: noone cares.
Warlock: GEHENNAS FLASHBACKS!! Don't stand in the rain of fire. Don't stand in the rain of fire. Don't stand in the rain of fire.
Warrior: Melee, sit this one out. Whirlwinds are swift and relentless.
Also, rogues/warriors/shammys need to be on the ball for any of the healing classes as his heals are quite noticeable and must be interrupted. Pally can be particularly bad as he likes to sometimes AW+Concecrate and the start a heal right afterwards.

The whole trick to this fight is NOT DYING. This is a healer fight. I use three healers: Priest, Priest/Druid/Shammy, and then anything for the 3rd (usually Pally). Circle of Healing is GOD in this fight. 2 CoH priests will win this fight, as Blaen stated. Barring that, a druid's HoTs or a Shammy's chain healing also work nicely for keeping the second group up thru the Bolts.

[Annivus]

My guild kills 3 of the adds.. We always have really bad luck with CC breaking mid spirit bolts and we are unable to CC until it's done.

Make sure to cancel EVERY heal. That's one of the biggest things that was tough for us. We use 2 warriors (warrior MT and fury warrior) and an elem shaman to watch for that.