| Ulduar Boss Strat Threads: Flame Leviathan - Razorscale - Ignis the Furnace Master - XT-002 Deconstructor - Kologarn - The Iron Council - Boss Stat - Auriaya - Hodir - Thorim - Freya - Mimiron - General Vezax - Yogg-Saron - Algalon the Observer |
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April 04, 2009, 08:38 PM
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#1 (permalink) |
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General Vezax
© The Warlocks Den 2009. All rights reserved. Not to be copied or redistributed without prior written approval. General Vezax General Vezax can be found in the Descent into Madness area of Ulduar, and is the final boss before Yogg'Saron. This area is only accessible after all four keepers of Ulduar have been defeated. (Mimiron, Freya, Hodir, and Thorim) Hard Mode General Vezax's hard mode is activated by allowing all eight of the Saronite Vapors to be up at the same time. When this happens, they form a Saronite Animus which must be destroyed before General Vezax can be killed. General Information Trash There's a fair bit of trash clearing that is required prior to reaching General Vezax. Most of it will be found in the General's room, but your raid will also need to clear some when first entering the walkway leading to the Descent into Madness. All of the Twilight cultists can be controlled via poly or other similar forms of CC, but they are immune to mind control. This trash is very much about crowd control, and will require your raid to focus on killing in priority order. Twilight Adherent's should be the first priority, killing them first or crowd controlling them immediately. Next are the Twilight Shadowblades, followed by the remaining casters. Crowd control the casters as much as possible until it's their turn to die, and tank the melee away from the main part of the raid. It's very important to ensure that your healers are not hit by the Arcane Burst all the caster mobs are able to use. Twilight Guardians will cause the least amount of trouble, but make sure that if the tank is stunned by Concussion Blow someone appropriate is ready to get agro, as they will change targets once their tank is stunned. Faceless Horror Link: Faceless Horror Hitpoints: Normal - 674k. Heroic – 2.3 million Notes: About every 25%, this mob will spawn a Void Beast, and cast Void Barrier on itself. The Void Beast must be killed before it will take damage once again. Abilities
Link: Void Beast Hitpoints: Normal - 195k. Heroic – 651k Notes: When killed, they cast Shadow Nova. These must be killed before the Faceless Horror will take damage again. Abilities
Twlight Adherent Link: Twilight Adherent Hitpoints: Normal - 337k. Heroic – 606k Notes: These mobs should be your first priority target. They fear, silence, and can heal themselves and other mobs. They are immune to mind control, but can be crowd controlled using poly, hex, etc. Abilities
Twilight Frost Mage Link: Twlight Frost Mage Hitpoints: Normal - 337k. Heroic – 606k Notes: Should be able to CC these with poly, hex, etc. Immune to mind control. Abilities
Twilight Pyromancer Link: Twilight Pyromancer Hitpoints: Normal - 337k. Heroic – 606k Notes: The Fire Elemental that these summon can be banished by Warlocks. Immune to mind control. Abilities
Twilight Shadowblade Link: Twilight Shadowblade Hitpoints: Normal - 337k. Heroic – 808k Notes: Immune to mind control but not poly, hex, etc. Abilities
Twilight Slayer Link: Twilight Slayer Hitpoints: Normal - 471k. Heroic – 741k Notes: Keep these away from your healers and clothies and you should be fine. Abilities
Twilight Guardian Link: Twilight Guardian Hitpoints: Normal - 471k. Heroic – 741k Notes: The Guardians will probably cause your raid the least amount of trouble. If they Concussion Blow your tank, they will change target immediately afterwards, so have CC or another tank ready. Abilities
General Vezax The General Vezax encounter is unique (so far) in WoW, as almost no mana regeneration effects work. (none in hard mode) Link: General Vezax Hitpoints: Normal – 8.3 million. Heroic – 30 million Notes: Searing Flames absolutely must be interrupted every time. The 75% armor debuff will kill any tank given his normal hits are in the vicinity of 25k – 35k. They are on a relatively slow swing timer, however, roughly 2 seconds apart. Abilities
Saronite Animus (Hard Mode) Link: Saronite Animus Hitpoints: Normal – 1.9 million. Heroic – 12.5 million Notes: The Profound Darkness debuff is applied every two seconds. Abilities
Saronite Vapors Link: Champion of Hodir Hitpoints: Normal - 943k. Heroic – 2.2 million Notes: Killing these will leave behind a pool which will convert hitpoints to mana each tick. The conversion process is not linear, as it starts out on the first tick doing 300 damage for 150 mana, and by the 7th tick is is converting 12000 hitpoints to 6000 mana. Strategy Suggested Raid Composition Normal Mode:
The fight itself sounds relatively simple, but as with most Ulduar fights, the key is in execution. Raid members need to know what's happening, and be on the ball to react to Shadow Crash and Mark of the Faceless. Ranged DPS should spread out in order to minimise the potential impact of Mark of the Faceless. If you plan on kiting the General during the Surge of Darkness, then plan the route in advance and make sure that all ranged will be positioned so as to require as little movement as possible. Melee will generally not need to move other than when killing Saronite Vapors or during the kite phase, and just need to stack up behind him. When General Vezax is first engaged, the raid will be affected by his Aura of Despair. In normal mode, this stops almost all forms of mana regen, ranging from “Natural” regen (MP5, spirit, etc) to triggered effects such as Shaman Water Shield, Mage Evocation, Druid Innervate, etc. The only mana regeneration effects that work are those listed in the aura description. (see above) This seems primarily to be in order to ensure that these DPS classes which use mana won't be too disadvantaged compared to non-mana users during the fight. The only way for casters to regain mana is by killing a Saronite Vapor and standing in the pool left behind. This does, of course, damage those players, which will necessitate healing. This fight is all about mana conservation, avoiding unnecessary damage, and controlling Searing Pain casts. If your healers are having to regularly heal people caught in the Shadow Crash damage, or not managing heals effectively, your raid will wipe. Correspondingly, if your DPS aren't on their toes at standing in the Shadow Crash residue and avoiding hitting raid members with the Mark of the Faceless, your raid will wipe. Throughout the fight, General Vezax will try to cast Searing Pain. It is imperative that this is interrupted, as it will wipe your raid. Ideally, assign two melee to rotate interrupts, with a third backup interrupt waiting. Searing Pain can be cast back to back, (although it rarely is) so your interrupters must be constantly ready. In addition to the Searing Pain, General Vezax will cast regular Shadow Crash bolts at random ranged players. Since this is a bolt spell and has a travel time, the closest to maximum range that your ranged DPS are the better, as it gives them more time to react and move away from it. Once the Shadow Crash has impacted, ranged players should move into the residue and make use of the buff. Given the mana efficiency requirements, it is recommended that caster DPS don't cast at all unless they're standing in the Shadow Crash residue. Periodically, General Vezax will cast Mark of the Faceless on a player. This will drain 5000 life per second from all raid members within 15 yards of the affected player. The affected player should immediately move out of range of all other raid members until the mark wears off. If players don't react fast enough, this healing will signifiantly increase the length of the fight, resulting in a wipe due to healers running out of mana. The final effect used by General Vezax is Surge of Darkness. This will be used pretty much every 60 seconds. There are two ways to deal with it, depending on the tank and gear. Kite him for the 10 seconds he's under the effect, or tank through it, using cooldowns to help mitigate the damage. DK's are currently considered the best of the tanks at handling this stage, due to their powerful cooldowns. Don't forget about Pain Suppression if you have disc priests in your raid. If your raid chooses to kite the General, then ensure everyone knows in advance the path the tank will be taking, ensuring the ranged can position themselves in advance in order to minimise the amount of moving required by them. The only mana regeneration available to all players is gained by killing the Saronite Vapors. There are a limited number of these available to the raid, (eight) and you plan on triggering the hard mode, you can't kill any of them. When the Saronite Vapors are killed, they leave behind a green pool, which players can stand in to gain the Saronite Vapors debuff, which converts their hitpoints into mana at a 1:2 ratio of mana for hitpoints. Each stack of the debuff doubles the damage done per tick. (and consequently the mana gained) It is recommended to use a melee DPS to kill these. 1 Stack 100 Mana 200 Damage 2 Stacks 200 Mana 400 Damage 3 Stacks 400 Mana 800 Damage 4 Stacks 800 Mana 1,600 Damage 5 Stacks 1,600 Mana 3,200 Damage 6 Stacks 3,200 Mana 6,400 Damage 7 Stacks 6,400 Mana 12,800 Damage 8 Stacks 12,800 Mana 25,600 Damage This effect has no known limit, but frankly, not many casters will survive beyond 7 stacks. As a general rule of thumb, casters should stay in for 5-6 stacks (start moving out at 5 stacks, may get a 6th on the edge) and healers should take 6-7 stacks. (start moving out at 6 stacks, and hit a 7th on the edge) Alternatively, if caster DPS only cast while in the Shadow Crash residue, they may not need to use the Saronite Vapors, and healers then only have to worry about healing themselves. Let your healers call when to kill a Saronite Vapor. If you don't want to trigger the hard mode, make sure that you have killed at least one before all eight are up. (this will happen after approximately four minutes) This is a relatively straightforward fight. DPS as hard as possible to kill him as quickly as possible. Avoid taking damage from Shadow Crash, move away from raid members when you have Mark of the Faceless on you, and maximise time spent in Shadow Crash residue. (ranged casters only) Hard Mode If you're going to trigger the hard mode, your healers will need to heal the entire way through without any mana back from the Saronite Vapors. Use as many tricks as possible to reduce the healing and mana cost of your heals. (see tips below) Once eight Saronite Vapors are up, they will merge to form the Saronite Animus. The Animus will appear where General Vezax begins the encounter, out the front of the door to Yogg'Saron. It can't be taunted, so players will need to use Misdirect or Tricks of the Trade to help the tank gain initial agro. The Animus will spawn at the same time that General Vezax casts Surge of Darkness, so you will either need a second tank, or a very aware main tank to to kite the General and pick up the Animus. Once the Surge of Darkness wears off, the General will cast Saronite Shield on himself, essentially becoming untouchable. In 10 man, he will stop casting Searing Pain, but in 25 man the General will continue to cast all his abilities. His casts can still be interrupted through the Saronite Shield. The Animus will cast Profound Darkness every two seconds and the debuff stacks, thus increasing shadow damage taken 10% per application, including the damage on application. The debuff remains even after the Animus is killed, so players need to be especially vigilant from here on about avoiding the Shadow Crash, as it will one-shot them. You cannot avoid the damage from the Profound Darkness; it will tick through immunity effects such as Iceblock or Paladin bubbles. The goal in hard mode is to get General Vezax as close to dead as possible before the Animus spawns. Once the Animus is dead, finish the General off. You need to kill the Animus as quickly as possible as well, since the Profound Darkness will be dealing increasing amounts of damage to the entire raid every two seconds. Tips
Hard Mode (for the people interrupting Searing Pain) – Set your focus to General Vezax, and use this macro during the Animus stage. Using focus is useful so that players can still see when he's casting Searing Pain. /cast [target=focus] <interrupt ability> e.g. /cast [target=focus] Kick Warlock Role There's no specific Warlock role in this fight. You're just one of the DPS, so make the most of it and go nuts! Tips
As always, I recommend viewing the HD videos, as it just makes it much easier to see what's going on. Tankspot's Normal mode with instructions Normal in hard mode Heroic General Vezax by Monsters Inc Heroic Hard mode by Drama Warlock Loot - 10 Man At last, we get to loot a corpse again instead of a chest!
Warlock Loot - 25 Man
The achievements are the same on both normal and heroic modes. The heroic mode achievements simply append “Heroic:”.
Information compiled from WoWHead, WoWWiki, StratFu, and the members of the Warlocks Den. Changes 30/06/2009 Added member tips from the thread.
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Why does my Succubus always say, "I'm with stupid"? Last edited by Swoop; June 30, 2009 at 09:22 AM.. |
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April 26, 2009, 03:00 AM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Relent 80 Human Warlock Auchindoun US PvP Guild: Simple Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: General Vezax
This boss is crazy and fun. We are experimenting with various strategies for dealing with the drain life mechanic atm. This boss has no phases, per-se; but does have a string of abilities which change the nature of the fight dynamically. Take care to not aggro the boss, as threat is a bit of an issue here. Even the trash for this boss is awesome, as it benefits the raid to have a lock for utility purposes (banish). You will have to kill a void creature which shields General much like the mechanic for the preceding faceless warrior trash. Firstly: Like all other Ulduar content, don't hesitate at all when you have fire flying toward you. Move immediately, as the Shadow Crash will throw you far away from the beneficial ground effect it leaves behind. Save all availiable cool downs for when you are able to be in this ground effect, as it will both double your damage and vastly decrease the amount of mana you use and additionally will double your haste. I suggest using a meta-ruin build for this boss, because even with about 800 haste your shadowbolt will not become haste-capped. Incinerate will cast so fast with the haste buff that it will beat your GCD, so any non-SB spec will be significantly gimped- and furthermore, Meta comes with all kinds of neat cooldown dps boosting effects. Try to limit your burn time to time spent in these shadow-crash ground effects to minimize damage taken in the vapor effect. Secondly: The mana regen mechanic of this fight is quite unique. You cannot get mana from any kind of mana-regeneration at all. Instead, throughout the fight "Saronite Vapor" neutral mobs with little health will spawn and roam throughout the chamber. Killing them releases a ground effect which will restore mana to you via a stacking debuff. 50% of damage dealt by this debuff will convert into mana in your pool. Life tap will not work in this fight, so you need to actually use the mana mechanic like all other casters. The tricky part of the debuff is that it will grow exponentially over time, instead of a linear increase in damage taken as in Biting Cold from Hodir. The first stack will be 100 damage or some other low number, and by seven stacks it will be hitting for about 3k. Try to only absorb about six or seven stacks and then move out of the green ground effect left by the vapors or it will one-shot you. Thirdly: There is a drain life mechanic which also functiones through a so far unique effect. The boss will target a player, who will gain the Mark of the Faceless debuff. This will not drain life from it's target, but will drain it from the surrounding players. You need to react quickly and get out of range of the other casters and melee who might be nearby: the tooltip and online information availiable doesnt specify an exact yard number, but we think that it's about 12-14 yards radiating from the targeted player. If there are nearby players, they will very quickly heal the boss for 5k per second per player. So, if you are standing near 10 people, they will heal the boss for 50k healing per second. Needless to say, spread out and stay smart throughout the fight regarding your positioning- and dont be a dps hog and use the beneficial ground effects while you have mark of the faceless, as you will then make that effect unavailiable to the rest of the raid. Toppint DPS charts is not going to impress anybody if you wipe the raid :P. Most of the other mechanics of the fight are tank-based. Regardless, I will list them below: Searing Flames- A casted effect that should never complete. Melee needs to interupt it or it will usually result in an immediate wipe. Enough said. Surge of Darkness- Buffs General's melee considerably, and slows his movement speed at the same time. This is the section where the tank will kite General around the chamber, and cannot build threat. Watch Omen here! If you do things right, you shouldnt have to worry about the enrage much. Which is, I believe, something around 10 minutes. |
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April 29, 2009, 06:31 PM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Desparatus 80 Human Warlock Aggramar US PvE Guild: Exalted Order Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: General Vezax
After numerous wipes as we figured out the fight - some observations. (10 Man) 1. Casters only cast when standing in the residue left behind by Shadow Crash - Mana is too important to waste at any other time. 2. We stack casters in the Shadow Crash Residue - if one of us gets Mark of the faceless - run away from the boss - other casters move towards the boss. You need quick separation. 3. Healers are by far top priority for Saronite Vapors - if you are only casting from Shadow Crash residue - you should not need more than one trip in to a Saronite Vapor during the whole fight. 4. Rank One Life Tap if you have the glyph - to keep up the damage bonus. 5. Watch your aggro. You do a lot of damage in a short period of time while in Shadow Crash residue. 6. Survivability is key. Watch out for Shadow Crashes, stay away from people with Mark - get in a black spot and dps - then move til you find another one. edit: use stone, bandages, health pot to help your healers. |
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May 03, 2009, 08:57 AM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Biotic 80 Undead Warlock Medivh US PvE Guild: Discord Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 53/0/18 |
Re: General Vezax
My guild was having trouble with Vezax until we put together this strategy, which we then downed him our first time trying it, and well before the enrage timer. Tank positiong: Tank starts off by getting Vezax into the center of the room. During Surge of Darkness the tank will kite Vezax either north or south(we had a druid kiting who went kitty form to get as much distance as possible). After Surge of Darkness wears off Vezax is taken back into the center of the room. Melee: Melee have nothing particular to worry about in this fight, I can't recall a Shadow Crash or Mark of the Faceless being targeted at melee at any point. Ranged: Split ranged into two groups. When Vezax is pulled group A will be stay on the west side of the room, group B to the west. Each group stacks up so that Shadow Crash is dropped in the same spot nearly everytime for whichever group has a member targeted. If you don't have the buff from a Shadow Crash cloud, you wand, as this helps immensely with not generating too much threat and also saves you a TON of mana. If you get Mark of the Faceless you run away from Vezax, while those near you take a few steps forward. Healers: Healers stay with the ranged in order to keep shadow crashes near the same area as a group, but stand outside of the shadow crash cloud,as it reduces healing done by 70%. With Mark of the Faceless you follow the same rules as ranged dps. Saronite Vapors: Only take out saronite vapors when needed, as there is a limited supply. When healers are low on mana have a healer call out the positioning of the nearest saronite cloud and mark it. All ranged dps should then take out the saronite cloud as quickly as possible. Healers get first priority over saronite vapors, and then ranged as needed. Get 6 stacks of of the vapors, and get out ASAP. We made it a rule that any caster dps that still has over 25% mana does not get into saronite vapors. Major lack of sleep right now so I'm sure there's some things I'm leaving out. Any questions just ask. |
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May 04, 2009, 05:47 AM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kilmir 70 Gnome Warlock Aszune Euro PvE Guild: Been There Done That Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: General Vezax
10-man as well. On our kill we simply let the tank stay and take the punishment during Surge of Darkness. The resulting stationary fight made it much easier to coordinate puddle usage. We had everyone spread out in a large circle around Vezax so any Lifedrain or crash only affected 1 person at a time. We only had 2 casters run to a shadow puddle and stand at opposite sides so if a lifedrain hit it only took 1 tick on 1 person. Casters wanded till they got into a shadow puddle, then they burned with all they got. Our locks were Demon and Replenishment builds so very efficient at fast burst. At 10% boss health we simply started nuking with the mana we had left, puddle or no. The green puddles were also left alone till a healer marked one up and called for dps on it. if I recall correctly the damage of the green puddle was like this: 5th debuff - ~3k damage 6th - ~6k damage 7th - ~12k damage Any nearby casters also jumped into it if needed. Casters got 5 ticks then moved out (often getting a 6th tick at the edge), healers who healed themselves up stayed till 6th (7th at the edge). Shadow Ward eats the damage of the debuff, but doesn't prevent the managain. Our locks used Shadow Ward to get another "free" tick this way so we stayed in till the 6th (+7th) like healers. Healers only used very efficient heals on anyone but the tank so most casters had to make due with HoT's. One thing of note: Due to lack of a warrior and our prefered tactic of letting the DK tank stay in place I had an imp out. Amazingly enough the imp actually regened mana. Mana Feed and Replenishment didn't work so it eventually ran out, but it kept regaining mana and shooting bolts whenever it had enough so it wasn't entirely useless.
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Create like a god, command like a king, dps like a slave. |
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May 12, 2009, 08:18 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Character Info
draterrojam 80 Gnome Warlock Azgalor US PvP |
General Vezax...demonic circle.
I did a search and only have seen one other post on the WoW forums with only a few responses and no blue response. What I wanted to know is...in the General Vezax fight, are we not aloud to use demonic circle? And why? Can mages blink? Is there a debuff that prevents us? Looking forward to answers/qq (jk) :-) |
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May 12, 2009, 09:45 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Re: General Vezax...demonic circle.
I haven't tried it myself, but... the only reason not to use demonic circle is that mana conservation is one of the keys to the fight. Generally, you don't want to be casting anything outside of the Shadow Crash residue. If you can find a good placement for the circle, and use it judiciously, it might be very useful. <edit> If you missed a word in your original post, and intended to ask WHY we aren't allowed to teleport, then I suppose the encounter would have this limitation to increase difficulty. It's not hard without teleport btw. I actually think it would be of limited use in the fight. The cooldown means you can only use it occasionally, and you have to be in range (not a given, considering you are constantly moving). When you take into consideration other people's movements when they have debuffs, I think it's probably safer for everyone if no body is blinking.teleporting. But your raid mileage may vary. =P Last edited by Fauste; May 12, 2009 at 09:53 PM.. |
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May 12, 2009, 10:52 PM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Character Info
fired 80 Blood Elf Warlock Arathor Euro PvE Guild: The Usual Suspects Talent Spec: 0/41/30 |
Re: General Vezax...demonic circle.
the circle is useful to get out of the group fast when you have the leech effect on you. For the shadow crash thing not so much. Anyway your problem is that you put the circle down before the fight started. Wait for the tank to pull the boss then place your circle. It will then work as intended 
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May 13, 2009, 02:21 PM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Soulzar 70 Human Warlock Medivh US PvE Guild: Trismegistus Profile: Talent Spec: Destro |
Re: General Vezax...demonic circle.
It does not matter if you put it down before or after you engage. It works perfectly fine, why are you thinking it is not? what issues have you had? I put mine down and request healers to stand on it to bait me shadow crashes
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May 18, 2009, 04:59 PM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Luxury 80 Blood Elf Warlock Deathwing US PvP Guild: Addiction Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 54/0/17 |
Re: General Vezax
Quick Note: Due to the Shadow Crash buff, its incredibly easy to hit Haste Cap on this boss even with Shadowbolt. Due to this reason, I'd recommend going with the Firestone in this fight.
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