“Forgive
me, Field RepairBot 74-A, your death only adds to my failure!”
--Vaelastrasz The Corrupt
Vaelastrasz
Strategy
Compiled by Elmerthudd
SECTION I: OVERVIEW
When the encounter begins, Vaelastrasz will give the entire raid party a buff
called Essence of the Red, which allows for nearly unlimited mana, rage, and
energy for 3 minutes. If he is not
dead at the 3-minute mark or shortly after, the encounter is nearly impossible.
He also casts a debuff called Burning Adrenaline which gives players
instant cast spells and raised DPS, but it takes 5% of your MAXIMUM health per
second. Vael’s health begins at
30%, but it is still a lot of health to take in 3 minutes, so stack up on DPS.
The 30% mark is only meant so that warriors can start executing earlier and
remain on top of the aggro list. Fire
resist gear is a great advantage in this fight, so casters and melee should take
all they can wear since mana pools do not need to be large and therefore large
heals can be cast non-stop. The FR
buff from UBRS can be used to good effect in this fight as well.
Vaelastrasz despawns for 24 hours 1 hour after he is initially engaged.
SECTION II:
VAELASTRASZ’ ABILITIES
Essence Of The Red: This buff gives everyone in the raid 500 mana, 50 energy, and 20 rage every second for 3 minutes or until death. This does NOT include Soulstones. Essentially the duration of the buff defines the window of opportunity to kill Vael.
Burning Adrenaline: Damage
done increased by 100%. Attack
speed increased by 100%. Reduces
maximum health by 5% every second. Deals
4375 to 5625 damage to nearby allies upon death.
Burning Adrenaline will be cast on the main tank every 3rd
shot or so, and randomly on mana users throughout the fight.
Just like Geddon's living bomb, you will wipe the raid if you explode in
camp. So, as soon as you get the
buff move to the empty areas behind Vael's tail or next to the stairwells on
either side of the tank position, and lay down all the damage you can. You get a
CTRA warning and your name will be called in TS. Be ready to move.
Burning Adrenaline cannot be
countered and after 20 seconds the targeted player WILL explode, regardless of
heals.
Tail Swipe: If you are too close to the tail and the tail turns toward you expect a knockback across the room and some damage. Like Onyxia, Vael has a very large Hit Box (you can attack him 10 yards or so away from his body).
Fire Nova: Damage aura that hits everyone for 300-700 fire damage per tick. Bring as much Fire Resist gear as you can get, don't worry about reducing your mana pool as it’s never going to run out. 150 base FR makes this fight much more survivable. Bring Greater Fire Pots as well. Priests will spam Prayer of Healing to counteract this ability. Minimizing the damage form this is the reason fire resistance gear is required. If the healers lose their essence of the red, they will swiftly run out of mana trying to keep people healed. The pulses also interrupt casting; greatly reducing the effectiveness of any casters with channeled spells, as they will be getting constant interrupts.
Frontal Cleave: Also like Ony, Vael has a cleave that hits up to 10 targets in front of his face for 2500+ damage. Thus, only the current MT should be in front of Vael. If Vael spins on the melee group I suggest evasion.
Flame Breath: Vael's Flame Breath is stronger than Ony's, and it strikes in a cone in front of his face. One big thing to remember here is that Vael can't use his flame breath while he's being spun, so in tank transitions or if you steal aggro as melee you need to run to the MT position or vanish instantly so that he doesn’t get the chance to breathe on the raid.
SECTION III: PICTURES
Vael
has 3 limited AoE and 1 Aura type damage abilities. The damage zones are shown
in the picture above. Note that he has a ‘blind spot’ just over his rear
legs.
Looking over the MT’s shoulder
SECTION IV: THE PULL
Pulling Vael is done by one warrior running through him from the wall opposite
the throne. Vael will turn, and the
pulling Tank’s job is to make sure he doesn’t move. 5 seconds after initial aggro the offtanks move in and start
fighting for aggro. 8 to 10 seconds after initial agro, all DPS begins.
SECTION V: THE FIGHT
The first tank will engage in the maintank position and immediately begin
generating as much aggro as possible. All
other warriors will hold off for a couple of seconds then begin doing the same.
The idea is to keep all the warriors on top of the aggro list to allow
the aggro to switch to another warrior when the first tank goes down.
Shamen and any spare druids are on tank healing.
Turn your CTRA heal cancel off because you have unlimited mana and spam
your quickest heals on the tank. Priests
should be able to toss heals to the main tank pretty frequently, in between
casting Prayer of Healing on their party. Priests,
remember to shield yourself and the shaman in your group whenever you can to
enable uninterrupted casting. Druids
have it tougher; keep rolling through everyone in your group healing as well as
you can.
When Vael is at 20%, warriors activate Recklessness and
Execute for maximum damage. At 10% all Rogues and Hunters stop DPS for 10
seconds. Rogues use feint and vanish whenever available.
If it is resisted then stop all backstabs until you can cast a successful
feint again. Hunters have to be
careful with DPS after a good aimed shot crit.
Feigning Death whenever available is mandatory.
When anyone other than the MT gets Burning Adrenaline, run to the bomb disposal
area and continue DPSing at your new greatly improved rate until you explode.
When the current Main Tank gets burning adrenaline he stays in position. The
offtanks get ready to get aggro and immediately turn Vael back to the tank
positions. During the transition Vael must not move, so it is important for
tanks to always stay within melee range of Vael. Occasionally on the transition
healers might get a tailwhip and a short gap in the MT healing occurs.
This is not optimal, but probably won’t cause a wipe by itself.
Vael only does his flame breath only when his target is stationary.
So should you ever see yourself targeted by Vael, start to strafe to the
MT to turn Vael away from your allies and back onto the MT.
Everyone takes damage, so the best solution is Prayer of Healing, which means 8
priests are optimal, one for each group. If less than 8 are available, use
druids with chaining renew and regrowth on all of their party members.
Other druids and shamen will be primarily responsible for chain-healing
the current MT.
SECTION VI: MT TRANSITIONS
45 seconds into the fight, when Vael is at about 22%, the first tank will get burning adrenaline. This is effectively a 15 second warning that the tank is about to die and that the second tank is about to get aggro. Rogues should immediately vanish to clear their aggro, hunters should feign and priests should fade. Everyone else should ease off for a few seconds to ensure the warriors are next on the list.
The tank's max health will be slowly lowering and lowering. Before long, one tick of the fire dot Vael puts on the tank will do more damage than the tank has life, and the first tank will bite the dust. The second tank will then take aggro and Vael will turn to face that warrior.
This is the tricky part. The shamen and druids need to switch targets to heal the new warrior using either a /assist Vaelastrasz macro or using the Maintank's target's target windows. Either way, the heals will have to start landing very fast or the tank is going to get a close up view of Blackwing Floor. The new tank will also have to very quickly move into the main tank position. If he is too slow, casters may get tail whipped and the other warriors may be cleaved or flame breathed. Any of these will spell the end of the attempt, so the move has to be very quick. If you aren't the warrior who gets aggro, take it easy for a few seconds to that aggro doesn't bounce back and forwards between you and the new tank.
SECTION VII: THE END OF THE FIGHT
Everyone maxxes their DPS and keeps burning him down. Every 45 seconds the tanking warrior will be hit with burning adrenaline and another transition needs to happen. This will be identical to the first, minus the vanishes. Victory rests on the ability of the healers to switch targets and the warriors to take aggro and move into position quickly.
Warriors, remember to bring a fast one hander. In a successful run of this fight you can expect to lose 10-12 mana users and 4 tanks.
SECTION VIII: SPECIFIC CLASS ROLES
Priests: Fade whenever it comes up.
Prayer of healing is the way to go, in between prayers, you have the
choice of hitting players with renew, shield, a flash heal, or tossing a fresh
SW: Pain on Vael. Try and keep the
SWP up. When you get Burning
Adrenaline hit the MT with a greater heal and your group with one last Prayer of
Healing while running to the bomb zone. Once you get there, SWP, Smite,
MindBlast etc.
Druids: Positioned with the healers and ranged
attackers. Druids are concerned with healing the raid and MTs in transitions.
Regrowth all the time on everyone. If
you don't see anyone low, hit the MT with fast heals.
When it comes time to transition tanks, screw everyone else and keep the
new tank up. Once they are in
position and the Shamen have him go back to regrowth spam.
Keep an eye on the raid, if we lose alot of shamen you should focus on
healing the MTs. When Burning
Adrenaline hits you, toss a Big heal on the MT then get to the bomb zone. Do
whatever DPS you can. Mooooooooonfire!
Shamen: Positioned with the healers and ranged
attackers. During the fight you
have two jobs: Fire Resist (and assorted other) Totems and Heal the Tanks.
Shamen do the vast majority of MT healing in this fight, don't worry
about anyone but you and the MT. Keep
them alive at all costs. Never stop healing the MTs.
When Burning Adrenaline hits a shaman they need to get to the bomb zone
ASAP and then heal as much as they can to anyone in range before they blow.
Rogues: Positioned with the melee group. The priority
of attacks is as follows: Feint every time it comes up. Backstab every time it
comes up. Eviscerate every time it comes up.
There will be a called Vanish when Vael hits about 15% to drop rogues
down the aggro table for the last half of the fight. If you take knockback get back into position ASAP.
If you take aggro VANISH. If
you don't have a vanish timer up, run to the MT position with evasion on.
Don't let Vael breathe on the raid. Stay alive and lay it down.
Don't pull aggro, spam feint. Stay
at max range to attack, just like Ony this almost totally negates tailswhip.
Mages: Mages are in the ranged area. Spam arcane missles or frostbolts, whichever will do more
damge. Fire Ward yourself.
When Burning Adrenaline hits Get to the bomb zone ASAP and
insta-Frostbolt the hell out of him.
Warlocks: Positioned with healers and ranged
attackers. SS the first MT, make
sure you have many shards for healthstones.
If you are in an MT group keep the Imp Phased and up front, other wise
plant your felhunter in a bomb zone. If
you get lucky, it will soak up a burning adrenaline.
Other than that keep up the CoE, CoS, CoD and bring the pain. When Burning Adrenaline hits get to the bomb zone ASAP and
lay it down as hard as you can.
Hunters: Positioned with the healers and ranged
attackers. Send in the pets in the
first wave, DPS is DPS. If you see
a free debuff slot, sting Vael. Lay
down huge damage and Feign Death whenever it comes up.
If a hunter pulls aggro the raid is over because Vael breathes on the
ranged group. When BA hits make
your way to the bomb zone ASAP and use every shot you got starting with
aimed-shot.
Warriors: Bring a very fast weapon to chain off heroic strikes, sunders and executes more quickly. Make sure you stay on top of the rest of the warriors. Not doing this can bridge a cleave between the warrior group (who most likely will survive it) and the rogues (who most likely will not).
Tank Warrior: There will be 4 MT warriors each need
about 250 FR minimum. The MT1 goes
in 1st and gets off 2 sunders. Depending on if its the first run, MT1 will
either just go chat with veal and move to his tanking spot or run along the
right wall and turn into Vael to aggro him. MTs 2-4 then enter as they are
called to over TS and start spamming heroic strike and sunder, after the last MT
is in position the rest of the raid opens fire (hunters can start a bit earlier
due to feign death). After the
first MT starts burning, MT 2 will move into position and start spamming
anything he can to build aggro (sunder, revenge, shield slam if you've got it).
Eventually the first MT will go down from the burning adrenaline and
aggro will transfer to the second MT who is standing in the tanking position.
Depending on the number of warlocks present, MT1 and MT2 may have
soulstones. If you do, hop up after you go down (hopefully not during a fire
breath or cleave), pop a potion and move back to the warrior spot. From there
lay down as much execute damage as you can.
MT2 gets in position and establishes solid aggro, MT2 moves in to take
aggro and the rotation continues till the next tank gets BA. Never stop spamming
heroic until 19% then spam execute.
DPS Warrior: Lay down the dps. Execute for the win, if you somehow take aggro run to the MT position and die. Always keep your eye on the mt's target's target. If aggro comes to you, you have to be ready to move instantly. If Vael stops spinning for more than a second he will fire breath the raid for 4k+ damage and wipe it, or cleave the melee for 4k+ damage and wipe them. This fight can be laggy but just do your best to be on the move the instant he aggros you. The MTs can try and hit mocking blow ASAP to get it back but it can miss, dodge or be parried.