Ok, I want this guy on farm before Nov.13, and we just seem to fail at this fight. We've tried killing all the mini bosses, cc'ing all the mini bosses, or some combination and still the best we've done is we got him down to 8%. We are a small casual guild that is capable of 3 hour Kara runs, we have Mag and Gruul's on farm when we can get 25 folks together, and even the first 4 bosses in ZA are on farm because we rarely wipe on those. We've also downed 3 bosses in SSC and 2 in TK, although we've never full cleared them. But Hex Lord...I don't get it. The spirit bolts always get us in the end.

Can someone please share their strat for downing him? Thanks.

The spirit bolts is a test for the healers. Ask your priests to try using lots of Prayers of Mending (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33076) to keep the raid up during spirit bolts. If you have shaman healers, have the raid cluster up together so that chain heal can hit all of them. Remind the raid to use healthstones if their health is getting too low.

Apart from that, it's just a case of controlling the adds well at the start and having everyone alive when they die so that you have maximum effectiveness for dps'ing down the boss. Remember to examine all options for CC; a mage can sheep adds that are beasts or humanoids, so have them sheep the humanoid and let a druid Sleep the beast. Warlocks can banish elementals, make sure they don't banish more than twice as you don't want your dps to be waiting for the banish to fade before they can open up on him.

If you have any paladins with you, remind the melees to be extra careful of the boss using Consecrate. Have the main tank pull the boss out of the consecrate patch.


Um, that's about it for general tips. What problems exactly are you facing in trying to kill him? What do people die to?


-Annikk

If you have a resto shaman in the group, have them put Earthshield on themselves so the interruptions are less, priests should use Circle of Healing during the bolts. All ranged should try to stay grouped up ( if you have a shaman for Chain heal ).

I think both of you nailed our problem, that our range is too spread out so that our healers cannot use their aoe heals to maximum effect. Hmmm...writing this out I'm thinking we may not be getting the interrupts we need on his heals, either.

We're not having any trouble keeping the adds cc'd. Last night I was the only druid (tank), we had one mage, and we had a holy priest, no shadow priest. So we burned the snake and the shackle mini bosses, and kept the ogre sheeped and the demon banished.

Our heals were holy priest (way over 2k heals), holy pally (over 2k heals), and a resto shammy (1700-ish heals.) Prot pally OT, rogue, 3 locks (doing between 1k and 1.3k dps according to my Recount), and mage doing over 1k dps.

It seems like the fight just goes on too long, then someone makes a mistake. Someone gets caught in a consecrate while I'm kiting him, healers get low on mana, the rogue beats herself to death on his thorns...seems like melee really have no place in this fight. Maybe I can tank him differently? Ride out the consecrate instead of kiting him? Leave out the rogue and bring a hunter? Or build a group specifically to perma-cc the minibosses and just burn the boss as fast as possible?

Melees need to be awake. There is no substitute for telling the melees they are wiping the raid and ordering everyone to go and get some coffee. :P

Gathering up for chain/aoe heals is also good..


-Annikk

You dont need to leve melee out, though they need to pay attention to what form he steals.

Sounds like the warlocks are doing their part with DPS. Are they draining life during spirit bolts? If not, tell them to do so. That is 3 less people for your healers to focus on. I'm sure they are destro sac speccd, so they will get interrupted with drain life and have to recast (wasting mana), but they can just lifetap after the bolts are over when the healers have time to cast without interruption. And they can Death Coil the boss every time it is off CD (boss is immune to fear, but DC serves as a ~1500 heal and some damage).

Um other than the locks healing themselves during bolts, gathering up for heals is very helpful

Great ideas. I will take all of them into our next attempt.

Interrupting the heals is a big part of the fight, so is melee being aware of thier surroundings and not dying to thorns or consecrate. Tell them to turn on SCT if they need to see the damage they are taking so they can GTFO ( for lack of a better term ).

Going back to ZA tonight, what ranged interrupt options are there? Silencing Shot from a hunter? Spellsteal the heals? Any others?

I'm just guessing here, don't know if they indeed work, but Silence from a shadowpriest and Counterspell from a mage.

counterspell, spell steal, earthshock ( assuming it isn't resisted - restos don't really have much +hit >_< ). I'm not sure a silence effect works though.

I am an assistent raid leader in our guild on my main, a mage. And we struggled with Hex Lord until we did a few things. First get rid of most of the ads.

1) If you have a priest you can probably keep a shackle up, and if you have a warlock, you can probably keep banish up, other then that CC is just too unreliable in this fight, so kill them.

2) Your mage needs to be on his toes! Have him download an addon called "Healbot". I am sure your healers can direct the mage where to find it. He needs to decure the whole fight, this will save tons of mana for the healers. (note a boomkin can decurse too).
Edit: Silence doesn't work, but counterspell and spellsteal do. Your mage should macro his spam (fireball/frostbolt) with a Spellsteal in front...it will steal anything and everything he tries to buff himself with.

3) Counterspell, Kick, and for the love of god somebody steal or shoot off every buff he gives himself. His renew/lifebloom will heal the mage through an entire shadowbolt....lots of mana saved for the healers. He shouldn't have Wings, Thorns, Renew up for more than 1.5-2 secs.

4) Manage his Soulsteals. Call out on vent who he's got (cause you know someone wasn't watching their DBM) and make sure people are out of his concecrate, or a mage pops his snake trap and instantly Arcane Explostion to remove the threat.

5) Once ads are either dead or CC'd (shortly after the second shadow wave thing is a good target) All ranged group up for AOE heals. Just watch that you are not in a Rain of Fire if he steals the Lock abilities.

**We farm ZA with 2 healers, one priest and one uber resto druid. Everyone is in Badge Gear - ZA gear, so no crazy T6 or anything. Our Pally tank off tanks ads in the beggining in his holy gear and he helps heal the rest of the fight. We full clear in <2 hours, with a short break after we miss timer 4 by seconds.....grr**

We full clear in <2 hours, with a short break after we miss timer 4 by seconds.....grr**

No bears :(

Solar's advice is right on.

No bears :(

Solar's advice is right on.


Thats why I have to get my Bear up there!!!! But we are bit short on Mages too. :(

Anyway our guild founders, one is a prot pally and one is prot warrior, and both are outstanding players. My Bear doesn't stand a chance at stealing that role anytime soon.

Awesome advice, thanks a ton.

My Bear doesn't stand a chance at stealing that role anytime soon.

Hehe I was talking about bear mounts actually.

Though druids do great on tanking a lot of the ZA bosses. On the last 4chest I ran with my guild, our guild master (MT) tanked the entire thing (yes, including both phases of the bear boss - his dodge was ridiculous, and with trinkets can get 100% dodge every 2 min or so). It was impressive.

So, how'd you guys do on him this weekend?

We were missing some key people Friday so it didn't happen. On the calendar for tomorrow, I'll post an update after. Thanks for asking!

Good luck :)

Best of luck :)

Well, using all of your advice we 2-shotted Hex and 1-shotted ZJ! Thanks again for the tips, they made all the difference on Hex.

Wish I had an exciting story to tell with it, but it was all very clean, like we'd done it a dozen times before. Our cc'ers were a little slow to rebanish and resheep on the first attempt at Hex, but the second go was practically perfect.

Grats!!!

/clap excitdely!!!!!

Congrats, Hexlord is always tougher than Zul'jin. Hexlord is nasty healer check. Everytime you down him, make sure to hug a healer!!! :)

Grats !

Great to hear :) Grats!