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Raid Rx: Healing heroic Lord Jaraxxus

Matt Low
Updated ·5 min read


Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. This week, we challenge Lord Jaraxxus!.

This is the second boss in Trial of the Crusader. After you healed through the gate bosses that comprise the Northrend Beasts, Lord Jaraxxus is the next step.

My raid group managed to get this demon lord down this past week. We got the 10-man version down several weeks ago but the 25-man version eluded us for some time. Compared to Northrend Beasts, this boss should feel relatively easier. Your raid will spend less time learning Lord Jaraxxus than the previous boss.

Let's check out the healing side of things, shall we?


Setting up

Your healing group should consist of 6 players. 2 tank healers will suffice. Big plus if you have 2 holy priests or other AoE type healers.

When you're getting into position, direct your healers to cover the room as much as possible. Ideally your healers should be spaced out evenly from each other in a circle around the center. If each player can be covered by at least 2 or more healers, your raid will be in excellent shape.

Things to watch for

Incinerate Flesh: You thought this debuff was a pain on normal mode for healing. It becomes even more dangerous. If it goes off during normal mode, it's easily healable. Healers can cover the damage. On heroic, it's just about a guaranteed wipe when Burning Inferno lands. On normal, 60000 damage has to be healed up. On heroic, that amount increases to 85000. Priests, if their health was already low to begin with when they get this debuff, drop a shield on them to prevent any instant gibs while they get healed up to full.

Legion Flame: This green trail of heat can surprise even the most seasoned of healers. I confess I was exhibited signs of tunnel vision while healing. In one of the earlier attempts, I was roasted alive. Don't let this happen to you!

No one likes barbequed dwarves, right?

Space yourselves out to avoid Fel Lightning. You can eat a 2nd or 3rd jump from a Fel Lightning and still live. In other words, you should be safe standing next to 1 other person if there's no room around you due to fires on the ground.

Touch of Jaraxxus is a DoT that will be applied on random players. It's also going to hit nearby players around them with Curse of the Nether (which is also a DoT). The damage that both abilities do are negligible. That being said, druids should dispel them when they have an opportunity.

Strong communication will play a large role in dealing with the above debuffs. Your healers should be talking to teach other. it keeps everyone focused and on task. It alerts healers as to which raid healer is healing which player.

Optionally, you can designate a player to call out debuffs on your raiders. Unfortunately, the problem with this is that by the time the other player hears the command, it may already be too late for them. it all depends on latency and reaction time.

Handling the Mistress

When the first portal appears, throw a DoT or an instant damage spell on it. If you can, do some DPS until the raid starts taking damage. You might be able to squeeze in a few seconds of DPS time before you're called back to healing.

Raid DPS has to be high enough so that the raid gets no more than 1 mistress. If you get more than 1 early on, I'd suggest wiping it and trying again.

Mistress Kiss: Something new that healers may not be accustomed to is this debuff. If a healer gets it, the next spell they case gets interrupted. Not only that, the school of magic the interrupted spell belongs to gets locked out for several seconds.

For example, if I cast Greater Heal while having Mistress Kiss, the heal gets interrupted and my Holy spells are locked out.

Ways to combat this:

  • Priests: Cast Mind Control to trigger the interrupt into locking out the shadow school.

  • Shamans: Lava Burst can do the same thing.

  • Paladins: Nothing.

  • Druids: Stick to instants. I believe Starfire is a different school than most druid healing spells.

Using instant spells will not trigger a school lock out. Feel free to cast spells like Renew or Holy Shock if you've been kissed.

In the event mages are busy shooting up volcanoes or portals, resto shamans should be prepared to Purge Jaraxxus of Nether Power.

It's also possible to fake out the kiss by casting a spell and then immediately stopcasting it. It takes a bit of practice, but it's possible. What ends up happening is your spell gets cancelled and the debuff wears off, but you have free access to the spell school.

Dealing with Infernals

Infernals aren't a big deal individually. It's when they happen to come together and start pulsing where players can drop. I've seen my entire melee team fall over in seconds when multiple infernals converged. Try to add what DPS you can to the volcano when it spawns.

Holy Paladins will be a big asset when dealing with infernals. Their Aura Mastery and Divine Sacrifice should help mitigate enough damage to keep the raid alive long enough while the infernals are doing their blasting AoE. Make sure one of the Paladins have Fire Resistance aura active!

Consider setting up Divine Sacrifice and Aura Mastery rotations among the Holy Paladins. Priests can help on subsequent infernal phases with Divine Hymn.

If you're interested in some benchmarks, the norm for first time guilds is surviving through 4 portal phases and 4 infernal volcano phases.

Congratulations! Your reward for getting heroic Jaraxxus down is heroic Faction Champions! My guild is currently working on that. Once we get these guys down, I'll post some extra pointers and tips in a future column.

Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at our raiding column Ready Check.