General Vezax, Healer Guide
Updated 1 week, 2 days ago for patch 3.4.1 by Preston. View the change log.
This page covers a healer-focused strategy for General Vezax in Ulduar in Wrath of the Lich King. While it's tailored for healers, other roles may also find the information useful. If you have any suggestions or feedback, you can leave a comment below or tweet @PrestonDvorak.
This guide has been updated and maintained based on my own experiences with the encounter, combat log information, and Dungeon Journal information. I'll continue to update it as-needed.
General Mechanics and Abilities
- Several debuffs persist for the entire enounter.
- Applies Aura of Despair to all players, reducing Attack Speed and preventing mana regenration from all sources, except those listed in the tooltip and from Saronite Vapors, detailed below.
- Applies an additional debuff to non-healing specializations that utilize Mana as their primary resource and may also have healing spells. Greatly reducing their healing done, but allowing them to retain their usual mana regeneration.
- Paladins: Corrupted Wisdom
- Shaman: Corrupted Rage
- Every 60-seconds, the tanks will be dealing with extra damage while Surge of Darkness is active.
- Alternatively, the current tank can run away from Vezax to avoid being hit, due to the reduced movement speed effect.
- Every 60-seconds, a Saronite Vapor will spawn at a random location in the room.
- Saronite Vapor
- Upon death, leaves behind a pool of Saronite Vapors.
- Players in the pool gain stacks of Saronite Vapors, which deals stacking damage over time while restoring mana over time.
- Upon death, leaves behind a pool of Saronite Vapors.
- Saronite Vapor
- About every 5-seconds, delayed by other abilities, interrupt Searing Flames to prevent the heavy damage dealt to all players and the greatly reduced Armor effect.
- Avoid the impact location of Shadow Crash, targeted at a random player's location, preferring those not in melee range.
- Standing in the resulting Shadow Crash pool greatly increases magic damage dealt and casting speed, while greatly reducing mana costs and healing done.
- When affected by Mark of the Faceless, stay more than 15-yards away from other players to avoid chaining the damage dealt and to prevent the healing to Vezax from Mark of the Faceless. This prefers to target players not in melee range.
- After 10-minutes, goes Berserk, greatly increasing Attack Speed and damage dealt.
Hardmode Differences
Hardmode is activated by allowing six Saranite Vapors to spawn, which takes about 6-minutes. Once the sixth Vapor spawns, they coalesce into a Saronite Animus which must be killed.
- Saronite Animus
- While alive, Vezax is immune to damage due to Saronite Barrier.
- Deals increasing light damage over time to all players with Profound Darkness.
Healing Notes
Quick Notes, All Difficulties
The notes below mostly pertain to progression difficulty, meaning if you out-gear the difficulty you're on or use extra healers they may not apply.
- Use Major Cooldowns
- as-needed to keep the tanks alive during Surge of Darkness
- (Hardmode) while the Saronite Animus is alive
- Use Minor Cooldowns
- as-needed to deal with damage from Saronite Vapors or Shadow Crash
- Pre-heal Before (mainly for heal over time classes)
- (Hardmode) the Saronite Animus is activated
- or, keep heal over time effects active on the current tank
- Other things to watch for
- The tanks should need most of the healing during this encounter, and conserving mana will be very important.
Debuffs to Track
Major
- Saronite Vapors causes affected players to need additional healing over time. (Note that this is technically classified as a Buff.)
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