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Lord Jaraxxus Strategy Guide |
| by Jackmason |
| This is the main guide for this boss. We will attempt to keep it up to date, so feedback is appreciated. This is copyright material. Please respect the work of the author and ourselves and do not copy it. |
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Lord Jaraxxus is the second challenge that awaits the raid undertaking the Trial of the Crusader. Accidentally summoned by Grand Warlock Wilfred Fizzlebang, Jaraxxus slays his summoner and attempts to put the Coliseum to the torch.
Raid Composition and Preparation
Lord Jaraxxus is not a demanding encounter in terms of raid composition on normal mode. He requires two tanks (a main tank and an off-tank for adds) on both 10 and 25 player mode, and it is wise for a raid new to the fight to overstock on healers; 6 or 7 are recommended for 25 player mode, and 3 for 10 player mode. The rest of the raid should be evenly balanced between melee and ranged DPS.
The raid should be geared appropriately for the Trial of the Crusader; a full loadout of Ulduar gear is recommended. A very skilled raid in full Naxxramas gear might be able to tackle Jaraxxus if they were patient and played very carefully, but the demands of raid healing in particular favor better gear and higher stamina values on everyone in the raid. Undergeared healers and caster DPS players are in danger of being swiftly killed by various abilities in the encounter. By contrast, players in full Ulduar or Ulduar hard mode gear will find that the encounter is tuned to be quite easy for them; the incoming damage is much easier to heal through and players are in less danger of dying from random combinations of abilities.
Boss Abilities
Lord Jaraxxus
Lord Jaraxxus has 20 million hit points on 25 player normal mode and 4.1 million hit points on 10 player normal mode. He melees a well geared tank for around 13-15k on 25 player mode and around 7-8k on 10 player mode. His swing timer is slow, around 2 seconds, but he often casts spells in between swings which cause tank damage to seem spiky if healers are inattentive.
He has the following abilities:
Fel Fireball
25: Details
10: Details
Jaraxxus casts Fel Fireball on his primary aggro target. It deals ~25k damage on 25 player mode and ~15.5k damage on 10 player mode. It can and should always be interrupted. In addition, if a cast gets through, the Fel Fireball leaves a DoT on the tank which deals 9.5k damage per second for 5 seconds (just 6k damage per second on 10 player mode). This DoT is a magic debuff and should be dispelled by a healing priest or paladin if a Fel Fireball interrupt is missed.
Fel Lightning
25: Details
10: Details
Jaraxxus casts Fel Lightning on random targets. It is an instant cast arc lightning (that deals fire damage) that jumps to a total of either 3 or 5 targets. It deals about 10% less damage per jump, and the jump range appears to be 5 yards. The spell has a 2 second cooldown but Jaraxxus casts it in practice every 10-15 seconds.
Incinerate Flesh
25: Details
10: Details
Jaraxxus casts this debuff on a random player in the raid every 20-25 seconds. The debuff reduces damage dealt by 50% and lasts 12 seconds. It cannot be dispelled, but instead is removed through healing: the afflicted target must be healed (for 30k on 10 player mode and 60k on 25 player mode) before the 12 second duration expires. If the player is not healed enough to remove the debuff, they will explode in a Burning Inferno.
Burning Inferno
25/10: Details
This spell triggers, dealing AoE damage to the entire raid, if a player who has the Incinerate Flesh debuff is not "cured" of his debuff in time. Burning Inferno lasts 5 seconds and deals about 2500 damage per second to every member of the raid group, regardless of their range from the "burning" player.
Nether Power
25: Details
10: Details
Every 40 seconds, Lord Jaraxxus will buff himself with a full stack (10 stacks on 25 player and 5 stacks on 10 player) of Nether Power, vastly increasing his damage from his various spells. These buffs should be Spellstolen or dispelled as fast as possible to prevent Jaraxxus from one-shotting raid members with a triple strength Fel Lightning or the tank with a similar Fel Fireball. Adventurous raids may wish to have their mages Spellsteal all of the Nether Power buff stacks for a massive DPS boost; but this is slow and therefore dangerous to the rest of the raid.
Legion Flame
25: Details
10: Details
Every 30 seconds, Jaraxxus will debuff a random raid members with Legion Flame. This Flame debuff lasts for 6 seconds and deals 4.5k damage per second to the affected player. (3k damage per second on 10 player mode). In addition, every second a patch of Legion Flame will be created where the player is standing at the time. Players with this debuff should quickly run the Legion Flames out of and away from the rest of the raid and back towards the Coliseum walls where they can easily be avoided.
This green fire also deals the same amount of damage to anyone who stands in it: 4.5k damage per second on 25 player mode and 3k damage per second on 10 player mode. This damage also shows up in the combat log as the spell "Legion Flame", but the spell IDs are different for the flame patch:
Legion Flame:
25: Details
10: Details
Nether Portal and Infernal Volcano
Every 60 seconds, Lord Jaraxxus will summon adds to assist him. He alternates, starting with a Nether Portal at the 1 minute mark and then an Infernal Volcano at the 2 minute mark, repeating this sequence until the fight is over.
Nether Portal
25: Details
10: Details
Nether Portals summon a Mistress of Pain 8 seconds after Jaraxxus casts the initial spell. They also deal damage (as listed in the spell description) to any player within 10 yards of the Nether Portal when the Mistress of Pain appears.
Infernal Volcano
Infernal Eruption
25/10: Details
Every 5 seconds after Lord Jaraxxus casts the Infernal Volcano, it will erupt, landing a Felflame Infernal in a random spot about 15 yards from the centre of the Infernal Volcano (it can be anywhere in the circle around the Infernal Volcano). Anyone within 10 yards of the impact point takes about 9,500 damage, as noted in the spell description. A Felflame Infernal spawns on the impact point. An Infernal Volcano casts 3 Infernal Eruptions (and thus 3 Felflame Infernal adds) before despawning.
Mistress of Pain
Mistresses of Pain have about 944k hit points on 25 player mode and 348k hit points on 10 player mode. They melee for 6-7k on a well geared tank as well as using their Shivan Slash ability, which hits for around 20k on 25 player mode and around 15k on 10 player mode.
Shivan Slash
25: Details
10: Details
This deals a percentage of the Mistress' weapon damage to their aggro target (the off-tank) and ignores armor. Block, dodge, parry, and absorbs are all effective; only armor is negated. On 25 player mode this deals 17-22k damage to the Mistress' tank (75% of weapon damage) and on 10 player mode deals 10-12k damage (50% of weapon damage).
Spinning Pain Spike
25/10: Details
This spell strongly resembles a wrestling piledriver move. The Mistress will randomly target a player in the raid, leap towards them and grab the player, lifting them off into the air and spinning with them down into the ground. The player is interrupted and cannot act while grabbed (this takes 2-3 seconds) and then takes 50% of their total hit points in damage when they land. The Mistress of Pain returns to the off-tank afterwards (Note: this ability will kill anyone below 50% hit points if they are unlucky enough to be chosen). This ability cannot be resisted or mitigated except by absorb effects.
Felflame Infernal
Felflame Infernals have 216k hit points on 25 player mode and about 82k hit points on 10 player mode. They hit for around 5k on a well geared tank.
Fel Streak
25: Details
10: Details
The Felflame Infernal will randomly choose a player in the raid (at any range) to charge towards. When they reach that player, they cause an explosion around the targeted player, dealing about 6.5k damage to anyone within a 15-yard radius (about 4.5k damage on 10 player mode). Then they gain a Fel Inferno buff:
Fel Inferno
25/10: Details
After impacting on their Fel Streak target, the Felflame Infernal gains this Fel Inferno buff, which deals 2500 damage per second to anyone within 15 yards of the Infernal. The buff lasts 6 seconds and roots the Infernal in place while he pulses the Fel Inferno damage aura (the pulses are visible on the ground as waves of green fire while the Felflame Infernal is rooted). As discussed later in the strategy section, this means players in the vicinity need to get out of the Felflame Infernal's pulse range to avoid both the fire damage and the possibility of the Felflame Infernal meleeing.
Raid Positioning and Strategy
Initial Setup and the Pull
Lord Jaraxxus spawns after a raid member talks to the Coliseum Master near the eastern doorway. He will introduce Grand Warlock Wilfred Fizzlebang, a gnome who arrives through the western gates and proceeds to open a large portal. From this portal in the centre of the room emerges Lord Jaraxxus. He stands still and proceeds to kill Fizzlebang and then, after a short RP speech, aggros the nearest player. The raid should position themselves according to the diagram before Jaraxxus arrives. The positioning for this fight is basically static; most of the raid is spread out and spaces (designated by the orange ovals) are left open for players who have the Legion Flames debuff. Towards the left of Jaraxxus is where his adds are tanked, so that melee can easily move between the two spots and still have a path to reach an orange safe zone if they are afflicted by Legion Flames.
Healing Assignments
In the 25 player raid a minimum of 6 healers should be present. Assign two healers to main tank healing, one to off-tank healing, one to exclusive raid healing (with priority on players with Legion Flames or players who are hit by Pain Spike) and two to watch for Incinerate Flesh. The two healers assigned to heal Incinerate Flesh should be available to spot raid heals during most of the fight, but when the timer for Incinerate Flesh is up (every 20-25 seconds) they should be aware of who gets the debuff and immediately use their largest heals to meet the 65k healing requirement and prevent Burning Inferno (the off-tank healer can also help with this assignment, and if the raid has 7 healers the 7th should also be assigned to Incinerate Flesh duty). The variety of raid damage abilities combined with Incinerate Flesh (which requires a large amount of healing on a random single target) is what makes healing on this fight challenging.
For the 10 player version of the fight, assign one healer to the MT, one to raid damage and the OT, and one to Incinerate Flesh (with help from the raid healer). Fresh 10 player raids will find this encounter very difficult to heal if they only bring two healers. Three is highly recommended.
Overview of the Fight
The fight alternates between a focus on Lord Jaraxxus and focussing on the minions he summons, which must be DPSed down as soon as they spawn. While no adds are alive, all players should focus on DPSing Lord Jaraxxus, staying spread out (to avoid Fel Lightning) and dropping Legion Flames in one of the designated safe zones. There is nothing complex about this fight for the MT or most of the DPS classes in the raid; simply alternate between targets as they spawn and Lord Jaraxxus should die between 4 and 5 minutes into the fight.
The ranged DPS players and healers should be evenly spread out to avoid much of the fight's AoE damage: Fel Lightning, Fel Streak, and Fel Inferno are all reduced in danger if players are all 10-15 yards from one another. Clumping up is bad, and if players have to move to avoid certain abilities (Fel Inferno, Nether Portal, and Infernal Explosion in particular) they should return to being spread out from one another as soon as possible.
In addition to the MT, two DPS classes should be assigned to interrupt Lord Jaraxxus' Fel Fireball cast. Since a DPS player might have to move away due to the Legion Flames debuff, two are always assigned. The length of the interrupt doesn't matter; Fel Fireball has a slow recast timer anyway and so a shaman's Shock works just as well as a mage Counterspell or rogue Kick.
Also, shadow priests, DPS shaman, and mages should be alert for when Jaraxxus casts Nether Power, and immediately dispel/Purge/Spellsteal the buff. The full 10 stacks of Nether Power makes Jaraxxus' abilities incredibly dangerous and it is a top priority to get these removed quickly. Shadow priests, DPS shamans, and mages are all in the best position to do this and should keep Jaraxxus as focus target even when attacking adds because of this ability (note that, while healing priests and shamans can also dispel the buff, healing classes are usually too busy on this fight to assist with Nether Power and the task should be assigned to DPS classes).
Dealing with Mistresses of Pain
Players should adjust their position away from the Nether Portal when Lord Jaraxxus casts it so that they are not hit by the AoE when the Mistress of Pain appears. The off-tank should immediately pick up the Mistress of Pain and tank her in the designated location. She isn't very dangerous to the off-tank, although her Shivan Slash ability can result in somewhat spiky incoming damage.
The biggest danger from her is the Spinning Pain Spike, which deals 50% of a random target's max hit points in damage to them. This means that, as long as a Mistress of Pain is alive, no one in the raid should be below 50% HP at any time. This obviously makes the healers' jobs more difficult because of the wide variety of incoming raid damage during the fight. Because of this danger, guilds new to the fight will often use Bloodlust/Heroism on the first Mistress of Pain, ensuring that she is alive for as little time as possible.
Dealing with Felflame Infernals
Hunters should help the off-tank by Misdirecting Felflame Infernals as they spawn. Three of these adds spawn from each Infernal Volcano and occasionally off-tanks can need a little help in picking all three up and getting them out of the raid (if the Infernal Volcano lands in the midst of the ranged pile, players should be aware of it and watch for the Felflame Infernal spawns so they can avoid their AoE when they land).
The whole raid should be aware of Felflame Infernals while they are spawned. Since they can charge any player in the raid for their Fel Streak ability, players should be spaced so that a Fel Streak doesn't damage a lot of people when the charge impacts (Fel Streak deals damage in a 15 yard radius around the charge target). Any players within 15 yards of the Fel Streak target need to move away, as indicated in the secondary positioning diagram. The Felflame Infernal will be rooted where it "landed" with Fel Streak and the Fel Inferno buff will deal damage to anyone in range for 6 seconds (since the mob is rooted it will also melee whoever is in melee range, even if they aren't the highest on the its threat table. This is another reason why everyone needs to get away!)
It is during these Fel Streak charges that the raid is extra vulnerable to incoming damage. As players move away from the Felflame Infernals after they Fel Streak, they will be closer to other players in the raid and more vulnerable to Fel Lightning, as well as the possibility of being on top of a player who gets targeted for Legion Flames. Healers should be vigilant when they see the Felflame Infernals charging and make sure that raid healing doesn't get behind.
Normal Mode Wrap-Up
This encounter revolves around understanding Lord Jaraxxus' many abilities, and being able to get a handle on what is going on in the fight and keeping up with healing despite the many sources of possible raid damage. Once your healers have a clear understanding of the dangerous times in the fight (during add phases and while Incinerate Flesh is active) the fight will become much easier to execute and healers can adapt more quickly.
Heroic Mode Information and Strategy
Lord Jaraxxus' Heroic mode is essentially the same fight as on Normal mode. While there are some new elements in the fight, and all of the mobs and abilities are far more dangerous, there are no radical changes (though there are a few new features). Players attempting Heroic mode should thoroughly familiarize themselves with the normal mode strategy guide above, as it forms the foundation for the strategy for the Heroic version of the encounter.
Mob Statistics and Abilities
Lord Jaraxxus
Lord Jaraxxus has 26.5 million hit points on 25 player Heroic mode and 5.1 million hit points on 10 player Heroic mode. He melees for 1-2k more per swing than on his respective Normal modes, but a tank with upgraded gear should be able to mitigate this increase (or even more). All of Lord Jaraxxus' abilities hit for far more damage on Heroic mode, and are given with spell links below.
Fel Fireball
25: Details
10: Details
This spell deals ~35,000 damage on 25 player mode and ~18,500 damage on 10 player mode. It is still interruptible. The magic DoT effect ticks for 11k per second on 25 player mode and 8k per second on 10 player mode, for 5 seconds. (This should still be dispelled if a Fireball gets through.)
Fel Lightning
25: Details
10: Details
This spell has a 15 yard jump range on Heroic mode, meaning that, unless the raid spreads out around the entire room, it is likely to jump to the maximum number of targets. It deals ~12,000 damage on 25 player mode and ~10,500 damage on 10 player mode, again jumping to 5 and 3 targets respectively.
Incinerate Flesh
25: Details
10: Details
This debuff is the same as on Normal mode, but the healing required is much higher to remove it: 85,000 healing on 25 player mode and 40,000 healing on 10 player mode.
Burning Inferno
25: Details
10: Details
This spell deals far more damage on Heroic mode than on Normal mode. It deals ~8k damage per second on 25 player mode and ~4k damage per second on 10 player mode. (This damage is dealt to the entire raid for 5 seconds.)
Nether Power
25: Details
10: Details
This ability remains the same on Heroic mode.
Legion Flame
25: Details
10: Details
Legion Flame functions the same on Heroic mode, but the damage numbers are higher: 4,000 damage per second on 10 player mode and 6,500 damage per second on 25 player mode.
Nether Portal and Infernal Volcano
This is the only major part of the fight which changes. On Heroic mode, Nether Portals and Infernal Volcanoes have hit points and must be killed before they spawn additional adds.
Nether Portal
Nether Portal
25: Details
10: Details
Nether Portals summon a Mistress of Pain about every 5 seconds after they are spawned by Jaraxxus, until killed. They have 145k hit points on 10 player mode and 800k hit points on 25 player mode. They explode for ~10k damage when killed, as listed in the spell links given above.
Mistress of Pain
Mistresses of Pain have the same hit points and melee damage as they do on Normal Mode, but one new ability.
Shivan Slash
25: Details
10: Details
This ability works the same on Heroic as on Normal mode.
Spinning Pain Spike
25/10: Details
This ability also works the same on Heroic as on Normal mode.
Mistress' Kiss
25/10: Details
This ability is unique to Heroic mode. The Mistress of Pain casts this on random targets every ~20 seconds. On 10 player mode it is cast on just one target and on 25 player mode it is cast on 5 separate targets simultaneously. This spell places a debuff on a player which interrupts their next spellcast and deals ~8k shadow damage to them. If the player only casts instant spells, or does not cast at all, the debuff lasts 15 seconds and then disappears without any effect.
Infernal Volcano
Infernal Eruption
25/10: Details
Infernal Volcanoes behave as they do on Normal mode, spawning one Felflame Infernal every 5 seconds. However, they also spawn an extra Felflame Infernal immediately upon being cast. They have ~190k hit points on 10 player mode and 800k hit points on 25 player mode.
Felflame Infernal
Felflame Infernals have 415k hit points on 25 player mode and ~140k hit points on 10 player mode. They hit for around 5k on a well geared tank.
Fel Streak
25: Details
10: Details
Fel Inferno
25: Details
10: Details
These abilities behave exactly as they do on normal mode, except more deadly. Fel Streak deals ~12k damage on 25 player mode and ~6.5k damage on 10 player mode. Fel Inferno deals 5,000 damage per second on 25 player mode and 3,500 damage per second on 10 player mode, up from 2,500 per second on Normal mode.
Raid Positioning and Strategy for Heroic Mode
Unless otherwise specifically noted, the entire strategy for Lord Jaraxxus remains unchanged from the Normal mode of the fight. Tanking and healing assignments remain precisely the same, as does raid positioning. The following elements of the fight still need to be dealt with just as on Normal mode:
- Interrupting Fel Fireball on the MT
- Spreading out to avoid long Fel Lightning chains
- Spellstealing or dispelling Nether Power in a timely fashion
- Healing Incinerate Flesh before it causes a Burning Inferno
- Running Legion Flames out and away from the rest of the raid
- Avoiding the Fel Streak+Fel Inferno AoE effect from Burning Infernals
- Healing the Spinning Pain Spike targets of the Mistresses of Pain
None of these matters change on Heroic mode. Everything is simply far more dangerous; as noted above in the ability descriptions, most abilities go up between 50-100% in damage moving from Normal to Heroic mode. Making mistakes on Heroic mode is seriously deadly.
Dealing with Nether Portal and Infernal Volcano
The major change to the fight comes in the handling of Nether Portals and Infernal Volcanoes. On Heroic mode, these are now attackable mobs rather than static graphics, and they need to be killed by the raid quickly or they will continue to spawn extra Mistresses of Pain or Burning Infernals. Extra spawns usually create the circumstances for a wipe because of the large amount of extra damage that the adds can deal if there are too many of them.
The entire raid should be aware of the 60 second alternating timer for the next Nether Portal or Infernal Volcano spawn. These usually spawn to the left side of Lord Jaraxxus; but this is not 100% consistent, as he often turns to cast other spells on random people and this can change the positioning. The whole raid should stop DPS 2-3 seconds before a new spawn is due to be cast and prepare to immediately target and attack the new Nether Portal or Infernal Volcano. Classes with limited DPS resources should save their short cooldowns for use at this point: this DPS check is the single major requirement of Heroic mode and is difficult for many guilds to beat at first. (This means that rogues should save energy, casters should save trinket uses, and so on.) If your raid has excellent DPS, you will be able to destroy a Nether Portal with only one Mistress of Pain spawn and an Infernal Volcano with only 2-3 Burning Infernal spawns. From this point on, the fight proceeds normally.
It is hard to overstate the need for the whole raid to focus on doing as much damage to the Nether Portals and Infernal Volcanoes as possible. It is literally the only time in the entire fight when doing maximum DPS is important, and everyone should be focused solely on doing as much as they can to prevent extra adds from spawning.
A Note on Bloodlust/Heroism Usage
The Bloodlust/Heroism spells are an immense DPS boost, and can be used to overcome some of the difficulty associated with this fight while learning it. Here is a strategy to use these spells as efficiently as possible:
1. Nether Portals (and the possibility of a double Mistress of Pain spawn) are far more dangerous than extra Burning Infernals.
2. Don't use Bloodlust/Heroism on the first Nether Portal. (You'll definitely get two Nether Portals over the course of the fight.)
3. If your raid fails on the first Nether Portal and two Mistresses of Pain spawn, use Bloodlust/Heroism to then kill both as fast as possible.
4. Otherwise, save Bloodlust/Heroism until just before the second Nether Portal is cast.
5. Using Bloodlust/Heroism on the second portal should ensure that you only get one Mistress of Pain to spawn.
6. Lord Jaraxxus should be dead before a third Nether Portal can spawn.
Beyond this DPS check and the hugely increased damage from all of Lord Jaraxxus' abilities, there is nothing which is truly complicated about Heroic mode here. Come prepared and impress upon your raiders the importance of meeting the short burst DPS checks in the fight, and you will succeed.
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