For ranged classes, we've found that hunters were the best on elementals, followed by mages and destro locks. I know some guilds use shadow priests, and if they're specced for spirit tap they're a good choice for elementals. The fight is noticeably smoother when we run with 3+ hunters vs 1-2. We tried affliction warlocks on elementals, and it works okay, but they need someone to back them up when a tainted pops up since they won't have the burst dps.

We tried the affli locks on the stairs today. Being one myself, I don't know if I could have managed a tainted one alone but I had hunts on the two other sides who came to help me. We did not kill her tonight because too many mistakes in p3 with people not moving fast enough but it was definitely our best night on the Lady. Thanks a lot for all of your advice, I think it should work now.

It's hard to know what to tell you if you don't provide us with details about how you're failing. Are people killing Tainted when they spawn? Are cores passed quickly (<10s per core)? Are naga or strider overwhelming you?

But to start: shadowpriests are one of the best specs in the game and at this point, because of mana issues, basically 1-2 are a raiding prerequisite. Why aren't you raiding with any?

We are actively searching for shadow priests every day because of the raiding population horde side on our server we have had great difficulty in finding a shadow priest we are currently gearing one up as well.

tonight we are also trying a new strategy which i am very excited about where the melee are dealing with elementals and all the ranged are in the middle area standing in a circle along the outside i believe our problem is killing the striders and naga but this will most likely be corrected tonight sorry i was not more specific in my recent post

We got our first Lady Vashj kill last night, in no small part due to the information in this thread; thanks to everyone who contributed their experiences in bringing her down.

In the end it is really a matter of figuring out what works for a guild; in our case it turned out Giske's remarks on page 20 gave us a balanced setup to deal with the elementals while also having enough DpS left for the Striders and Naga (in the Naga case obviously to keep the number from stacking too high). The diagrams posted (which turned out to be correct for us too) helped a lot in distributing people in a balanced way to deal with everything; in the end we killed her with 2 tanks, 7 healers, 12 ranged and 4 melee DpS. The elementals were dealt with effectively by a mixture of Warlocks and Hunters, along with one Combat Rogue. The remainder of the ranged DpS (Hunters, Mages, Shadowpriests and a kiting Elemental Shaman) were on Strider duty, and finally an Enhancement Shaman, Combat Rogue and Fury Warrior to deal with the Naga. It took a couple of iterations, trying out a few of the viable solutions to the phase 2 puzzle posted here, but in the end it's what worked best for us.

Aside from the puzzle of where to put everyone, another important thing is for people to get used to their roles and react to things quicker. Our initial few tries on Vashj were extremely messy (something I suspect applies for every guild), but as we kept going, more structure could be seen, and we got more and more control over the fight. I personally (as one of the stairs healers) initially didn't end up doing a whole lot aside from healing the people in my area and being ready to toss cores; a decent time of practice later, I could do this while netting Striders, helping with some burst on the tainted elementals, running to the middle a bit to help out the melee group with a few CoH casts, and other things (including avoiding getting oneshotted by Nagas/Striders), simply due to the increased experience and overview I had of the fight. I suspect most people went through similar learning curves, until the raid worked as a more coherent team during phase 2, helping each other out. This obviously magnified the overall raid performance, with fewer cores being missed and DpS being able to control everything quite well, until things finally clicked during our thursday raid and we got through phase 2 cleanly all of a sudden. We wiped due to not being quite prepared yet to pick her up in phase 3 (and were too tired to get close again), but went back last night and got her on our third clean phase 2 execution. Still quite frantic, and phase 3 is something to improve on, but as long as people keep their cool, a clean phase 2 is a huge step to getting her down.

Definitely also the most satisfying bosskill in TBC up to this point. The learning curve kind of reminds me of Razorgore, in that things look bleak for a long time and people keep dying due to accidents, until finally everything clicks and the egg phase gets a lot cleaner. With the final phase in either case being a tad chaotic, but still relatively downhill.

Many thanks to this thread, we got our first Lady Vashj kill as a result last night on our third attempt over the course of 4days of actual work and tuning of our raid group for the fight. We even screwed up our timing on the P2 -> P3 transition by dunking just as a new strider spawned. We killed had 4 Elites to finish off (one was low already) and a full Strider. To say the least, we happened to kill her with one last person standing (me) the remaining DoTs got the job done. I can't stress enough how critical it is to time the last dunk before the next Strider pop so you can go into P3 with more uptime on Vashj.

Here is what we did for P2:
- Kill raid count was 2 Tanks, 3 Melee DPS, 12 Ranged DPS, 8 Healers
- 1 Affliction Lock on west side (entrance) Elemental control (pretty much our top DPSer.), BM Hunter to south area (zone between fallen and upright pillar), 1 Rogue as a rover for the west and south area, responsible for zipping to the Tainted add when it spawns and also responsible for looting the core.
- 2 Marks Hunters / 1 Demon Lock to the entire easter area, spread out from the north fallen pillar to the one standing in the south. 1 Rogue acting as a Rover in this area as well.
- Shadow Priest, 2x Mages (fire), 2x Warlocks (afflix/destro), Moonkin all in the center on top of Vashj. They are primarily responsible for Strider DPS and also assigned to kill finish off any Elemental leaks from the stair case. They need to watch for Naga Elite cleaves as they position for Strider DPS, standing on top of Vashj or next to a generator is designated as a safe place from Elite damage. Any spare time they have is devoted to DoTs/DPS on the Elites spawned.
- 1 Survival Hunter for Kiting the Strider. (track beast is on). I know various guilds try different classes, this particular hunter happens to have some of the highest aggro generation coupled with great control of the toon. CoEx, Mind Flay, HoJ and Netherweave Nets provided assistance. Nets have to be used with caution though before being arbitrarily tossed.
- 8 healers, 4 per generator and 4 per staircase area (1 West, 1 South, 1 NE and 1 SE). We tried to stick poison cleansing classes to the stair cases, and one of the generator (our preference is the SW one) healers was a Paladin with RF up full time to heal-aggro-pull the Elites to the tank area.
- 2 tanks, 1 Prot Warrior and 1 Feral Druid (me). The Prot Warrior would run down Elites as they spawned and bring them to the tank spot, which we kept as that open space between Vashj and the SW/SE Generator. It was imperative the tanks and ranged DPS in the center paid attention. To keep things simple, we kept the area on Vashj and the generators as designated "safe areas" where a Elite would not be dragged near of face. Adjusting my tank position required slight movement clockwise/counterclockwise in the center to get multiple elites cleaving in the same direction.
- Normally we use 2 melee in the center for past attempts but we went with one for our kill, which meant extra Elites to juggle into P3. As long as the cores get fielded properly, then you should see no more then 5 elites total during P2. Our melee in the center are responsible for burning down just the Elites. Our single Ret was able to get them down to about 40%-50% before the next one would spawn with no assistance, with another melee DPS traded for that 8th healer, 2 really sharp melee DPS could get them down before the next spawned. DoTs were hugely emphasized from the healers/ranged DPS. P2 is about motion, everyone needs to be constantly contributing something to the fight so you don't fall behind.
- Short and precise communication was key.
- Cores were passed from Rovers to staircase healers, staircase healers to generator healers for dunk.

P3 isn't to tough compared to P2. Just need to stay on Vashj. Grounding totems in the tank group are huge. Having 1-2 classes burn down bats from the west area is important during the first few minutes and getting down any remaining Elites/Strider is crucial. If you come into this phase with 24+ up, you should be okay. Make sure you use all the trinkets and long cooldown moves you got, battle rez anyone you can and keep the pressure up. We had our tank move her only as necessary to get out of the guano and try to stick to a clockwise pattern for movement around the outer edge, but be sure also to call out intended direction of the next movement. A huge attrition factor for this phase is a combo of entangle and slime on the melee it seemed, which is about 20k damage over 10 seconds. Melee need to bring Living Action potions and use any special abilities they can for those critical moments to not only break the entangle themselves and survive the slime but to also get maximum uptime on Vashj.

Again, many thanks to the community here.

Heal through it? It doesn't hit that hard unless you let her get hit by some elementals in which case you have other stuff to worry about.

Hiya. We've been struggling with this fight for some time now. We have some really clean, good attempts but thats not repeatable.

The biggest problem we have is healing.

I have 3 dps on the backside elementals, and two healers. One healer per generator. We tried only one healer, but then there was no one to pass cores to or remove poisons. The DPS would run up instead, to relay the core, but then like 4-5 elementals get missed.

I have 4 DPS on the front side, and two healers. One per generator; both can remove poision from their assigned two, and both relay the core to that generator.

Then I have one tank healer using righteous fury, no salve, no tranquil air to draw the spawns to the top. Tanks / Offtank grab the nagas before they get to her.

I have one resto shaman for (3) rogues / melee

I have one resto shaman for the 5 strider DPS and one strider kiter.

Even with salve, tranquil air the two shamans up top agro the naga constantly. So they dont go to the paladin "luring" them to the tanks. They do sometimes, but most times its the chain healers. We reinforce all healers need to "lay off" when we call out naga spawn. And they usually do, but one chain heal and naga head straight for them. And you cant say dont heal... because then DPSers die off.

In the video I've seen, the pally buzzes around the tank/OT and the naga magically head right to them, and the tank grabs it. Every time. Ours attack the resto shamans, shadow priest, w/e. A big part of that is the tank / offtank often isnt damaged enough to generate agro with healing. Especially if theres only 1 naga up.... or no naga.

And we have strider DPS dying constantly. We've tried a CoH priest, a resto, and a restoration shaman in charge of this job.

It just seems too tough to chase the kiter and heal him, while keeping up 5 DPS who are often scattered all around the inner ring in different directions. We've been through 2 healers who have asked to be swapped with another task.

This is already 7 healers total; 2 tanks, 3 melee dps, 1 kiter, 5 strider ranged dps, and 7 ranged elemental dps (25 total)

I've been thinking about another healer up top, but either takes away another element of the fight or I trade a DPS for a healer and things go downhill because things dont die.

If anyone has advise on how to fix the agro problems, the strider dps healing issues, or problems in general I'd greatly appreciate.

Sometimes, were short a class so a rogue ends up on elementals. Others have said it made elementals much much easier. Isnt that odd? I am half tempted to drastically change things and move the melees to the outside, and put 3 more ranged DPS inside the center ring.

But Im worried that we'll scrap all the learning we've been through.

But thats not our biggest problem... Our biggest problem is people up top dying off from lightning / poisons while the healer tries to chase them all over and keep the kiter up too, and the naga groing onto healers/s-priest and boning them

We also have a random problem where a strider spawns right ON TOP of one of the elemental DPS and they die.

When we learned vashj, we had some similar problems with healing.

My suggestion is that you put two resto druids instead of two shaman to heal in the center for your kiters (or at least one, if you do not run with two). We found that this worked well for us as a resto druid is a very mobile healer/cleanser (even in tree form), and could follow the kiters around the circle as they kited and toss rejuvs, lifeblooms and cleanse poisions on the kiters, the strider dps, the two naga tanks, and the melee on the naga. The two druids just casting their instants are enough to keep the kiters/strider dps and the melee fully topped off. Again, what makes resto druids a good choice for the middle is their ability to remain mobile while healing (ie. they are not required to plant themselves in one spot to cast a heal).

I would try not dedicating a single healer to the melee, as they shouldn't need it, and should have a HS and healing potion for an emergency. My experience is that it really does take two healers dedicated to the kiters/strider dps to keep them up, and just have those healers just top off the melee as needed. Because it does get hectic up top, we do generally call out people we see sitting at dangerously low life, or people who sit at half life for a period of time.

With the exception of your paladin healing the tank w/ rightous fury on, your other two healers should heal all of the reamaining raid members in the center while moving in the same circle as your strider DPS is moving. If your paladin is having trouble with drawing Naga agro, perhaps your naga tank isn't taking enough damage at the start for him to require enough heals to draw agro. Have your paladin toss heals to whomever is in range and in need as long as the tank is topped off, so that he is always casting a heal. If he is healing an already topped off person, even if he has rightous fury on, he isn't drawing any agro and the naga will not gravitate towards him. Another thing that we found beneficial is when people see a naga spawn, they call out where he spawns (NE, SW, or 6 o'clock) so that the pick up tank can already be moving in that direction. Our pick up tank often has the Naga in her control before it ever makes its way to the paladin.

Hope that helps!

I am the MT for 1, 3 but I play pickup tank in 2.

One of the problems is, I can taunt the naga before it reaches a healer just fine.

But then it hits me with a cleave - thus a random DPS in the general area bites it before I "walk it" to the offtank.

To compound that problem, it hamstrings me. So it moves slowwwwwly to its destination.

This doesnt occure if the pally gains agro. But the other classes take the agro alot.

A resto druid? Feasible... but I worry about their intense agro as well.

We stress for all in the center to avoid incomming nagas but the accidents happen so many times, every other attempt if not every.

As far as strider DPS, I asked them to stay grouped for the resto shammy, to make things much easier. But then, they all get forked. Hum.

Have your RF paladin pay attention to the timers and then LET the tank drop 7kish hp or something just as they are about to spawn. A maxrank holy light on the tank with a 5k+ deficit should send the naga beelining to him. We had the same issues when there were inexperienced paladins in the middle, people getting agro from hots and small heals etc.

In my guild i was kiting the striders, both as affliction and destro specced. We had no assigned healer for me. We did however have 3 or 4 healers on the edge of the stairs responsible for healing elemental dps, passing cores from those dps and throwing heals on me when i'm in range. The strider dps should be within the 'square' of generators most of the fight and thus be easily accesible for generator healers. Renews or a heal whenever i passed one of the stair healers combined with the occasional heal from the middle kept me up easily.

Not sure but i think we had 8 healers for this fight.

Then again on our first kills we had 4-5 affliction warlocks on the striders, due to aff warlocks mobility while doing damage we found them being superior strider dps. Strider should be dead at least 10-15 secs before the next one spawns giving the warlocks time to dot up the nagas during that time and while the kiter builds some agro. We only had 2 rogues and the tanks on nagas(make sure the enh shammie puts totems in range of them).

edited for botching the links, delete this msg.

The dps, healers are in the front half of the center. Us tanks, melees get the back half. Naga tanking zone. "Back" would be behind her as shes facing normally, near the rock obstruction that divides the outer ring.

No one in the outer ring - thats for stunning, netting, and kiting striders.

Yes, I find the naga when a section calls it out. I use target of target portraits so I know if I have to intervene

Its that phonominom of when I taunted the naga... and im moving it.... along the way, a healer or a dps clipped by the cleave as I move it to the back. The DPS / heals are spread and scattered through that front half. Some move but some are casting or facing a diff direction working on the strider or w/e. I can adjust as well, but only so much especially if taunting it OFF someone or hamstringed

Healing in the center is biggest problem. And its starting to "crack". DPS is kinda tired of it and complaining. Healers getting defensive and barking at others. Two healers have requested move. "Something about healing 6 scattered people plus chase kiter plus cleanse all 6 and themselves and not draw agro and avoid naga cleaves"

From my standpoint, theres 13 people up top total. 3 are healers.

We have been farming this fight for 3 months now. These are our learnings, they ae primarily about phase 2 because thats the key phase:

Tanking
- Use a Prot Paladin, Feral Druid and Prot warrior for the center. (Alongside other melee dps)
- Prot warrior tanks him in phase 1 and has bof given to him by 2 paladins, tehy can keep it up almost guaranteed and your tank won't take burst damage. In phase 2 prot warrior stands next to the column and turns it off with a core pass.
- Healer agro is a huge issue in phase 2. This is solved by using the prot paladin to ranged taunt. After we used this the issue of healers dying was nullified. If there are two nagas up then the feral druid can charge and pick up or moonfire pickup

Centre DPS (Nagas)
- This can be done in 2 ways, either you keep 4 solid melee dps who burn them in time. Or your share dot warlocks on nagas and striders

Strider DPS and Kiting
- We have come to the conclusion that an elem shaman is without doubt the best kiter for this phase. We usually down the strider 20 seconds before the next one is about to pop. Takes the elem shaman 4 seconds to get agro and then the ranged can do some huge damage. if tehy see that they are threat capped they attack the nagas for a few seconds and are then back on the striders.
- Strider dps consists of warlocks, mages and possibly hunters (who keep their pet on the naga to ensure that their dps is not being lost).

Side (elemental DPS)
- This is handled almost purely with hunters, although we have tried it with shadow priests and destro warlocks with the same success

Healing
- 1 healer per zone for the the sides, thats 4 - best here are priests and druids because they can hot/shield and move to the next victim
- 3-4 healers for the center. We use shamans and a druid or paladin who are the core runners (they run to the side where the tainted spawns and pass it to the prot warrior standing next to the generator). These healers heal the tanks in he center, the dps in the center as well as the kiter (he takes shadow damage)
- Don't exceed 8 healers or you won't have the dps to down the stuff in time.

Phase 3
- Its best to start off this fight by always having the warlocks dot the bats so you don't get green goo in the center. This good damages your tank and rips ur melee up.

Main tank group
- Its ABSOLUTELY key to have 2 shamans in your MT group in phase 1 and Phase 3 to keep grounding totem up or the burst damage cannot be healed
- Its ABSOLUTELY key to have a predefined (with backup) rotation of paladins cast BOF on your MT. If for some reason she gets away you can have the paladin ranged taunt it and the prot warrior can then taunt back off.


Do let me know if there are any specific questions you have and I will be glad to answer them.

No questions, just some comments for future Vasjh killers.

Using more than two tanks is unneeded and sacrifices DPS. Sure, you can take more once you're farming, but for learning the fight taking any more than two is making it harder on yourself.

Two pallies are kind of a requirement, simply because together they can rotate BoF and keep it on the MT forever. I'm sure it can be done without pallies too, but it seems giving yourself a very hard time. We never did her with less than 3 though.

Healer aggro is the reason those Naga's are easy to pick up. They have a regular aggrolist and lacking a target at the start they will go for whomever is highest on global aggro, which is a healer obviously. Just use ToT and have you tanks intercept and pick them up. Prot pallies have a ranged taunt making it quite trivial. We used druids and pallies on the stairs, so they could go bear or bubble in case they would get whacked, but if you call them out when they spawn they're easy to grab. Other guilds use a pally in the center RF healing t o make sure the Naga's beeline to the center.

It can be done in more ways. Most guilds/guides say stick melee on Nagas, but we always had our melee on the stairs and had the ranged DPS alternate naga/strider throughout phase 2. Just do whatever it takes to make sure the striders die and you can kill all elementals and tainted elementals.

There is no "best" kiter. The best kiter is a person you trust to not fuck up the job. It is helpful that an Elem Shammie's aggromove is also it's slowing move, but many other classes perform the job equally well. We used a CoEx specced warlock after trying frostmage and never looked back.

Agreed. Hunters seem to be excellent at nuking elementals. They were invariably on the stairs for us.

We ran 7 healers and put one on each stairsgroup as well. They were also spothealing the Forked Lighting. In fact, it's just the positioning that was assigned; they were pretty much FFA healers. We found that using anything BUT priests on the stairs would work best, since priests can't cleanse poison. The poison from the tainted elementals hurts and needs to be removed asap.

We had one druid healer follow the kiter around and do some poison cleansing on top of it leaving two healers (usually the two priests) to deal with OT healing.

It's generally accepted as "best" to have one single SV hunter kill bats from 42 yards until ~20% and then just all-out nuke. Or, if you have a DPS-heavy guild/raid, just ignore them altogether and waste Vasjh.

Bullshit. We learned her without a single Shaman in the raid and have killed her multiple times without one. We sometimes did have one (and put it in MT group for grounding totem) and while it did help, it's nowhere near absolutely key. Besides, once she stuns the tank, your OT needs to taunt her so she doesn't go own your warlocks and shadowpriests so healing the MT dying after/when he gets the shock should never be an issue.

I kinda agree BoF is critical as multishot can kill 4-5 people in seconds. I guess it can be done without if you keep your OT away from her so he can intercept/taunt when the MT gets entangled, but then you'd need the Grounding totem or a lot of luck.

Just get a Pally or two :-)

Imma try moving the resto druid into the middle. I had him on stairs because he can HoT people and move to another side, and remove poisons. But maybe middle is better, being the harder role

Got one perfect for the job methinks, who manages multiple hydross offtanks, heals his own lurker island plus the main tank, watergraves+merloc tank, and other jobs you wouldnt ask a normal raider-joe.

A shadow priest in the strider group makes worlds of difference; health mana, increased shadow damage taken, and constantly stunning the striders as well. We cant seem to get one in every raid, so I am recruiting one who will be.

Think in a nutshell, we've got to

Stop missing tainted spawns.
Get a grip on the naga agro
Change some heal assignments
Work on communication when passing cores
Take the right people, each attempt

Were getting 4/4 gens down very often but... half a dead raid. Yanno?

// edit

Comments on kiter, ours is aff lock. He does very well. That occasional kiter death is aggravating. Lot of people crying about elemental shamans, or how hunters can do it with autoshot etc etc. But truth is, hes practiced it attempt after attempt, and I dont think I can just "switch" now and NOT be at square 1 on kiting. That and, I dont think our ele shaman wants the responsibility.

Felguard and Vashj: compatible? I have the 2-piece T5 bonus and Solarian trinket, however our raid does not have an abundance of AOE heals so I generally can't expect the felguard to get dedicated heals. Can I expect him to survive this fight, or would it be better to respec into something more suitable, if our raid is coming up a bit short on DPS? My instinct tells me that there is too much damage going on in this fight for the Felguard to stay up in P2.

We have one Felguard lock in the guild who is in charge of a stairs section and does fine that way. In general the Felguard won't take an unreasonable amount of damage (Forked Lightning + occasional tainted). Additionally, from my experience as a stairs healer, the actual healing part of P2 isn't overly intensive. It's more the healing while doing other stuff (netting striders, helping out on tainted, healing other people who are low and not too far away) which takes some time and practice to get right. Actual healing on the people on the stairs is often achieved with some Renews and low rank heals, while annoying Forked Lightning streaks and tainted dots might increase the need for healing a bit, but never to a point where it becomes overly demanding or hard on mana. Just make sure the healer is aware of the importance of your pet and has a raid frame out, as typical raidframes might not include pets.

Resto druid in the center / kiter is nothing but win!

Two 20% attempts last night. Things are starting to click.

Still some blunders with cores. I got some teams on the ball that get the core to the middle in matter of seconds. And smart enough to throw half way to another generator once theirs down. But I got other teams where its tooth and nail gettin the core to the top, and I find myself riding them on vent "Wheres that core at" or maybe "Team 3 owes me a core".

One time, core #4 waiting to be dunked at the correct time (strider timer ~15s) , and the person holding it got cleaved by naga n died with the core.

Just small stupid things like that.

So phase 3; I had the hunters pick at bats. But only 2 have extended range. And I hear its very difficult to look UP at the bats, HIT the bats, and still see when your standing in goo while your looking up at the bat. So theres some issues there.

Our raid got kinda "cut off" by goo and people couldnt reach for heals etc. And I think nearly every healer forgot about static charge =*(

There was debate about downing the last, remaining naga during phase 3. I say DPS vashj and ignore it. The healers are saying it would be a lot easier if we just finished it off. I am undecided.

Soon I hope. She gonna die soon.

Leaving the naga up, to me, can cause nothing but problems. Elementals > Strider > Naga should be the priority, obviously melee staying on the naga then to vash. Explain to your healers it's just phase 1 with an element of movement which really isn't tough, as long as they are spread around the raid, heal those in range, they should have no problems. Regarding getting cut off by the goo, i don't understand how that can happen.

Two hunters on the bats max i'd say. The bats are being taken down to keep it more controlled to give you that extra dps to beat the "bat enrage" which you can still get through anyway. Having too many just makes it counter-productive as you'll have too little dps on vashj.

If your hunters are having issues with the bats, put them on Vashj and try moving two affliction locks to the bats. If they stand at the top of the stairs by the bridge (where the raid enters) and face themselves toward the bridge with their back to the raid, they should be able to hit each bat with a couple of DoTs as they are swooping in, which should be enough to kill them. Note that the goal is to hit as many bats with DoTs as possible before they go out of range, so they shouldn't try loading a bat with full DoTs, just as many as they can get off while still DoTing the other bats that spawn as well. They may need to tab target the bats as they start swooping in from the bridge, but they should have the opportunity to hit them with enough dots without moving from that postion to take the bats out of the equation during phase 3. Be sure to remind your healers to keep an eye on those assigned to the bats as the raid moves around, as they may end up out of range.

If you only have one affliction lock, pair him up with a hunter, but have the hunter stay in the same position and multishot/serpent sting as many as he can hit before they move out of range.

Additionally, before your DPS starts on Vashj, you should eliminate all of the remaining mobs from phase 2 that are still standing. We generally wait to "dunk" the last core until the current strider is at about 20% and there is not the risk of a fresh one spawning. The last of the elementals are taken down, and then the entire raid focuses on the remaining Naga (all of this should happen in less than 60 seconds). Phase 3 is hectic enough on it's own that you don't need to add unnecessary compilcations to it!

I did most of our Vashj kills as felguard spec. In fact I was the strider kiter as felguard spec. Felguard specs have a lot of +fire dmg (thanks to Demonic Knowledge talent) and so can hold aggro very well with searing pain and DOTs on the strider. My felguard pet would always be on the naga elites for additional DPS. The strider itself would usually be snared by a shadow priest's mind flay and blackout stuns, but if it ever got too close, I could intercept my felguard to the strider for a quick stun so I could run further away. Basically you just have to manage the felguard and assist off any melee that are on nagas to make sure your felguard is always doing damage, while at the same time kiting the strider with full DOTs and searing pain. The felguard has no trouble staying alive for all phases if you have VST and 2-piece tier 5 set bonus. In fact as felguard spec I was #1 in damage done for every Vashj kill, even though I had to kite striders. It's a good spec for Vashj and for SSC in general.