Ready Check: Lord Jaraxxus
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.
Last week, we took a short break so that Matthew Rossi could join us and celebrate the return of Onyxia. Hopefully, everyone's had the opportunity to go re-pwn her by now. If not, don't give up -- I'm confident everyone will be able to get her down eventually.
Lord Jaraxxus? Maybe not. Lord Jaraxxus is the first boss fight in the Trial of the Crusader which I felt was a true raid-check. It's not an impossible raid check, mind you. Once you get the hang of the fight, you'll do fine. But getting the dance steps down in the first place will probably give a few raids a migraine headache. Let's take a look at the big demon behind the cut.
Overview
The fight starts shortly after a guest appearance by Wilfred Fizzlebang. There's some fair argument about whether or not Wilfred meant to summon a weaker demon, and was shocked to see Lord Jaraxxus arrive. I'm leaning toward believing the arrival of Jaraxxus was a clever ploy by Fizzlebang to set us at ease. Fizzlebang's mortal shell has been struck down, but that will only make him more powerful than we can possibly imagine.
Anyway, enough about the gnome. During the fight, you'll be fighting not only Jaraxxus himself, but the legions he commands. In this case, it's some roaming Infernals and the occasional Mistress of Pain. Let's start looking at the powers:
Lord Jaraxxus
Fel Fireball - Inflicts heavy Fire damage and moderate Fire damage every 1 second for 5 seconds. The cast can be interrupted with the usual techniques, and it is considered a magic effect for the purposes of dispelling.
Fel Lightning - Inflicts moderate Fire damage to a random target and jumps to other players nearby, affecting up to 3 targets in 10 man, but 5 targets in 25 man.
Incinerate Flesh - Absorbs 30,000 points healing done to the target (60,000 in 25 man) and reduces the damage done by the target by 50%. If the spell is not removed by healing through it, it will cause Burning Inferno. That will kill nearly the entire raid. Incinerate Flesh lasts 12 seconds or until the spell absorbs its healing limit.
Legion Flame - Inflicts light Fire damage every 1 second for 6 seconds. The target also spawns a Legion Flame every 1 second.
Infernal Eruption - Summons an Infernal Volcano, which shoots Felflame Infernals at players over 15 seconds. Every time an Infernal lands, it causes Infernal Eruption, inflicting moderate Fire damage to targets in a 10 yard radius. Up to three Felflame Infernals will spawn, althought usually not all at once.
Nether Portal - Summons a Nether Portal and inflicts light Shadow damage to targets in a 10 yard radius of the portal. The Portal spawns a Mistress of Pain.
Nether Power - Increases magic damage done by 20% per application. Jaraxxus will buff himself with 5 stacks in 10 man, and 10 stacks in 25 man.
Felflame Infernal
Fel Inferno inflicts light Fire damage every 1 second for 6 seconds to targets within 15 yards.
Fel Streak allows the Infernal to charge a target, inflicting light Fire damage to any target on its path. So, don't stand in that fire.
Mistress of Pain
Shivan Slash inflicts heavy damage and ignores armor.
Spinning Pain Spike is occasionally cast on a random target, inflicting high physical damage based on the target's maximum health.
Putting It All Together
Lord Jaraxxus is basically a reflex fight. It's one that will put your off-tank and your healers very much on their toes.
You can basically have your main tank park Jaraxxus dead center in the room. When adds spawn, your off-tank has to quickly grab them, and your DPS has to quickly kill them. That's fairly standard action for your DPS (generally, if adds exist, kill the adds). The spawning infernals will get your off-tank moving pretty quickly, though, as he or she won't have a lot of time to dilly-dally when they spawn.
Legion Flame will put a fire under its target. As with almost all raids everywhere, don't stand in the fire. Your reflexes will have to be sharp to keep moving, and not get burnt to a crisp.
Incinerate Flesh is a big deal for this fight. When it drops on a player, your healers need to get big healing numbers on them very, very fast. If they can't "heal down" the shield, then an area effect will damn near wipe your raid. If the area effect damage doesn't kill your raid, it will certainly hurt it badly enough that Jaraxxus and the next set of spawns won't have much trouble.
Infernals are a pain for your off-tank. They are spawned by little volcanoes that grow up out of the ground. And while you'll know where the volcano itself is, that doesn't have much impact on where the infernal will pop up. Paladins are very strong off-tanks for this fight, thanks to their wide array of demon-fetching ranged abilities. However, even a Paladin will have to move fast to grab aggro, providing DPS the precious seconds need to burn the infernal down.
When a Mistress of Pain shows up, same thing. Grab it, and kill it. However, her Spinning Pain Spike will keep her bouncing around the entire raid. It's important that your tank work fast and hard to keep picking her up after each piledriver, as it can feel like she's jumped a mile away each time.
Nether Power can be a problem if it gets stacked all the way up. However, you have a wide variety of options to deal with it. A Mage can Spellsteal it, or Hunters can pop it off with a Tranq shot. Basically, use the abilities you'd use to strip a buff off someone. That will distract your purgers from their DPS rotations, but that's probably better than letting Lord Jaraxxus stack up huge hitting power.
Other than that, it's mostly a tank and spank. Good luck!
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