Not such a Lucky Day for me :-(

Got a tell from a guildie, asking if I could heal heroic Magister’s Terrace. Well, of course I could, been through it all just a few days ago, remember?

Cocky, cocky, cocky… should have known better than to make such a bold statement…

It was me, my shadow priest friend, a rogue, a mage and a paladin tank heading into that sunny place. We got through to the second boss with a few minor glitches, but generally doing ok. On Vexallus, however, it was a dead end. Literally. I have never felt as useless as a healer.

If I diverted my attentions away from the tank to toss a Renew or Power Word: Shield on any of the dps’ers dealing with the adds for a second too long, the tank’s health dropped precariously and I lost him more often than not. Tried both spamming Greater Heal and Flash Heal with the same results. Dead dps or a dead tank.

If I tried AoE heals like Circle of Healing when all of us got hurt, the instant ~1000 heal/gcd did not add up fast enough to keep the tank alive through the boss’s massive onslaught. Result: a dead tank.

We had a shadow priest with us and we tried with his Vampiric Embrace backup heals, and we tried with him in healing gear for backup heals, and we tried making him shield/renew every add-taker so I wouldn’t have to add the precious second and a half of the global cooldown from shielding another group member to my cast time for the tank heals. Same results, all dead, dead, dead…

We wiped 7 or 8 times at that boss, getting him down to 10 % on some occasions, but never did we get to kick his sorry excuse of an ass.

*walking out of there with a huge repair bill and a hanging head, confidence in my healing skills seriously shaken and general spirits somewhere down around my ankles*

Soooo… time for some more research! How can I avoid feeling sucky again?

Trawling dah intarnet yields some conflicting information, but they seem to agree on some things.

Only been in there a few times, and only twice in heroics, and I was a bit busy both times trying to keep my group members alive so I cannot vouch for all this information from my own experience. (Yet.)

Weirdly enough, Vexallus melee attacks are Arcane damage only, albeit about 3 k of it in heroic. He has a ranged attack as well that does about 2,5 k Arcane damage with a dot that ticks for 250 Arcane damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.

He also has a randomly targeted Chain Lightning (Nature damage) that jumps from target to target with increasing damage, making it imperative that all group members are positioned as far away from each other as possible.

At 10 % health he will start casting Overload, a AoE spell with unlimited range (=it will hit all of you) that does 1 k Arcane damage and gives a stackable debuff that increases Arcane damage taken by 10 %.

Vexallus also spawns a pair of adds, called Pure Energy, when he reaches 85 % health and then at every 15 % drop in hp until he reaches 25 %. The adds move slowly flying around the room, (although likely to hit the tank at first since he is closest to their spawn point) sparking off Arcane energy bolts dealing about 3 k damage to the targeted player.

When killed, the adds give a debuff in the form of an Arcane dot, ticking for 300 damage per seconds for 30 seconds but also increases the player's damage output by 50 %. These debuffs stack up to 10 times.

Sounds like a real heaven for a healer, right? No trouble at all healing through this inferno of Arcane blasts and dots ticking away...;P

Anyways, I found some tricks that might make me feel a little better (and maybe get him to drop that sweet Rod of the Blazing Light for me...)

If you have a lot of gold (or some Primal Manas just lying around unused) you can get some Major Arcane Protection Potions, or maybe some Arcane resist gear, maybe equip your Violet Badge for the fight, which will make your healer breathe a little easier.

A lot more healer-friendly than the usual zerg seems to be the approach known as the Slow and Steady.

In this case, after each add is dead, you just hold dps on Vexallus until the debuff has worn off after approximately 30 seconds, to avoid stacking the debuff and make the healer miserable. The 300 damage per second tick is easily healed through with a Renew.

When all players are debuff-free, start dps’ing again until the next pair spawns.

After the last pair is killed you immediately go for Vexallus, dps'ing him down fast and furiously to avoid that nasty Overload. The Overload can be interrupted it seems, so a warrior with Shield Bash, a rogue with Kick or a mage with Counterspell would come in handy here ;P

Another useful tip I found was that the chandeliers in Vexallus' hall seems to act like grounding devices that suck up the debuff, so if the dps stand as close to these candles as possible the debuff will hit them and then pop off. No need to wait that 30 seconds for the debuff to wear off then.

Other interesting facts I found about this fight was that he actually does no physical damage at all, meaning that he doesn’t actually need to be tanked by the tank. A warlock or shadow priest with good Arcane resist can tank him, and I have read that a Demo warlock’s Felguard actually makes a great tank for this encounter – something I’d definitely would like to try next time I bring Paynne in there.