We wanted to make players aware of several changes made to the General Vezax encounter upon the release of patch 3.2, which weren't noted in the official patch notes.
These changes affect both 10-player and 25-player modes. First off, when considering the hardmode of the encounter, the mechanics were overly favoring groups that made heavy use of Restoration druids (Omen of Clarity procs) and “Enhancement” shamans using healing gear (Shamanistic Rage and Improved Stormstrike) to circumvent the mana restrictions. Omen of Clarity will no longer proc for Restoration druids, and Enhancement shamans receive a healing debuff similar to the ones Retribution paladins have had since the encounter’s initial implementation.
Recognizing that this would make the encounter far more difficult for raid groups that have come to rely on those mechanics, we also made changes to ease the overall mana burden when attempting the hardmode. The health of General Vezax and the Saronite Animus was reduced by roughly 25%, and the Animus will now spawn after six Vapors, down from eight, assuming none have been killed.
In addition, prior to 3.2, General Vezax could be very erratic in the use of some of his abilities, leading to long gaps between Shadow Crashes in particular. His behavior in this regard is now more consistent. As a side-effect of this change, in 25-player mode in particular, he will also cast Searing Flames slightly more often – whenever his Fire school isn’t locked out by player interrupts, essentially. Finally, because the “more consistent” Crash use ended up being a bit on the frequent side, a minor hotfix recently increased the period between Crash casts.
Touched by the Light spec for Paladins still works. During the fight due to healing received I was able to regenerate 8k~ mana from Spiritual Attunement.
Touched by the Light spec for Paladins still works. During the fight due to healing received I was able to regenerate 8k~ mana from Spiritual Attunement.
The main reason you spec TbtL is because SS is always up on the tank and FoL is the only spell you can cast, thus the crit bonus is uite good. Even without SA, TbtL would still be awesome there.
Well we managed to down the giant crab from hell and his big blob yesterday on 10-man after 10 tries or so which was kinda decent since we've never tried it before. What we did was we had our healers bunch up on tank and melee (as they should) with our 4 ranged DPS'ers standing outside in 2's. One question that arose for me during the tries was that if it's preferred to kite Vezax during Surges until he spawns the Animus to save mana or if you lose too much DPS and it complicates positioning too much. We had a protection warrior with Imp. Shield Wall and two priests (one disc, one holy) so saves wasn't really any big problem but when Vezax was at 10%, our 3 healers was pretty much oom.
I might be incorrect on that one. There's no reason it should work since other similar things don't anymore. I'm just going by what another healer told me.
The health nerfs have really taken the previously heavy DPS requirement for the hardmode, and made it a non-issue.
The big change is the increased frequency of shadow crashes. Now if you put all your ranged DPS together (on 10 man) they will spend more time running from crashes than doing damage. Our overall output went up significantly when splitting ranged DPS into two teams of two. They may have had to wait a couple times for a crash on their side (yay wands!), but they were able to stand and dish it our for more than five seconds at a time. As an additional benefit, with only 2 people a side, thats very minimal healing done to Vezax.
Two healers can heal the hardmode fine, but I would suggest three from a safety standpoint. The enrage really isn't that demanding anymore.
The big change is the increased frequency of shadow crashes. Now if you put all your ranged DPS together (on 10 man) they will spend more time running from crashes than doing damage. Our overall output went up significantly when splitting ranged DPS into two teams of two. They may have had to wait a couple times for a crash on their side (yay wands!), but they were able to stand and dish it our for more than five seconds at a time.
Agreed. The other advantage is that it dramatically reduces the healing that is done.
One thing we found (which I'm not sure has been mentioned) is that you can place hunters within the "melee" zone, if you're trying to reduce the number of people at ranged. They will have range issues during the surge (due to the size change), and potentially on the Animus, but aside from that they should be fine. It will hurt their DPS somewhat, but we found that the biggest issues with our attempts (when learning both normal and hard modes) were related to ranged taking too many Mark ticks, or too many Shadow Crash hits.
overall output went up significantly when splitting ranged DPS into two teams of two.
An even better tactic is making two teams, and making them stand on the outer edges of the shadow crash.
One thing we found (which I'm not sure has been mentioned) is that you can place hunters within the "melee" zone, if you're trying to reduce the number of people at ranged. They will have range issues during the surge (due to the size change), and potentially on the Animus, but aside from that they should be fine. It will hurt their DPS somewhat, but we found that the biggest issues with our attempts (when learning both normal and hard modes) were related to ranged taking too many Mark ticks, or too many Shadow Crash hits.
Having hunters with the ranged and aspect of the pack on is actually by far the best way to reduce mark ticks and shadow crash hits.
Having hunters with the ranged and aspect of the pack on is actually by far the best way to reduce mark ticks and shadow crash hits.
Pack can reach the ranged group even if the hunter(s) are in "melee".
I can't speak for other groups, but we have cleaner kills when we minimise the people at range, and spread them out as much as possible (ie no more than 3 people to a single cloud). I'm assuming this is due to a combination of oceanic lag and poor playing, but it works.
With the new mechanics, we found the best way to handle Vezax hardmode was as follows:
8 ranged dps, divided into 2 groups of 4. One group stands on the far left of Vezax, the other on the right. Each group has 2 people standing on each edge of the shadowcrash to maximize dps, and minimize movement and healing done to Vezax.
We ramped up to 7 healers, all in melee range until the Phase 2 transition, when 2 disc priests run out to the ranged groups (1 per each group) and we kept a holy priest in melee range. 2 paladins fulltime healing our MT who tanked both, a resto shaman also MT healing with a few chain heals on the melee, and a resto druid MT healing with a few WG's on the melee. The holy priest assisted healing both ranged groups.
We used a paladin tank, and external cooldowns for every other Surge. After the Animus dies, we do a few soulstone+suicides for a couple healers to get back some mana, and all the OOM people at range just spread out and focus on staying alive while the melee finish off Vezax.
We just run with 8-10 ranged usually. Half on left, half on right. Eventually the shadow crash gets wider so half the ranged don't even have to move for crash or mark. Add a disc priest on top shielding the ranged from within crash and there's little healing done. Last kill was around 2.6 million healing, and that was with 1 guy messing up and dying to mark when he ate a crash.
Would be even better if we had a hunter but apparently all hunters suck at this game.
08/11/09, 7:10 PM
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