Coliseum Lord Jaraxxus (Hard Mode)

[Ciderhelm]

Welcome back to the Crusader’s Coliseum raid guide! I am Splug, and in this video I'll be going over our strategy for the heroic difficulty of the Lord Jaraxxus encounter. If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Susbcribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

The encounter is very similar to its non-heroic counterpart. After completing the Northrend Beasts heroic encounter, you will likely find Jaraxxus relatively simple. Some of the abilities derived from previous data mining do not seem to be used in the actual encounter. In particular, the Touch of Jaraxxus ability was never observed.

Raid composition and positioning are both very flexible. Our raid included five healers and two tanks, but the encounter has been completed using six or seven healers as well. We chose to position using half of the room. Healers were placed in the central wedge of the semicircle, and ranged damage in the two adjacent wings. Everyone was positioned roughly 10 yards apart to allow room for players to run between them. In retrospect, it may have been ideal to cluster each group tighter with a gap between groups in an effort to contain Legion Lightning for party-based heals. Ultimately, it proved unnecessary.

The first change to the encounter from non-heroic involves the add-spawn mechanic. Rather than the portals and volcanoes opening, spawning monsters, and then fading away, they need to be taken down by force. These spawn devices have eight hundred thousand health, and as such almost the entire raid should turn and burn them. We left an enhancement shaman on Jaraxxus to handle purges and cast interrupts. The portals should ideally be destroyed before a second mistress spawns, or a fourth infernal.
Once the spawn device is destroyed, the melee return to Jaraxxus while ranged damage focus fires the adds. The mistresses gain an additional ability; all casting players should be careful to watch for Mistress’ Kiss. If a player is afflicted by the debuff, the next channeled spell he begins to cast will be interrupted. Most classes can mitigate this by beginning to casting an off-school spell, but holy paladins in particular will have to simply accept their holy school being locked out unless they wish to divine shield. Aura Mastery does not prevent the interrupt effect. Beyond this, Mistresses behave as before: tank them in the same general area as the boss to be sure everyone can reach them, and be sure healers are ready to save ranged from the large burst they perform on a random target.

The fel fireball, fel lightning, legion flames, and incinerate flesh spells occur exactly as they did on non-heroic difficulty. Fel Fireballs should be interrupted, Fel Lightning and Incinerate Flesh will need to be healed through, and Legion Flames requires players move to the section of the room directly behind the healers as quickly as possible without running anyone over. The damage caused by Fel Lightning is notably higher, but otherwise it is not mechanically different.

We handled the volcano spawns by having the offtank pick up the first and third infernals, while the Jaraxxus tank taunts and holds the second. The infernals are slightly changed in that they can no longer be stunned or banished to suppress their hellfire channel. All players should be aware of the inferals’ positioning, and move quickly if one teleports to your general area. The latest version of DBM includes a proximity warning for Hellfire. If an infernal lands in the melee area, the Jaraxxus tank will need to relocate the boss. Beyond this, ranged damage simply focus fire the infernals down one at a time.

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Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Crusader's Coliseum raid guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll go over the strategy we use for the heroic 10-man version of Lord Jaraxxus, the second encounter in the Trial of the Grand Crusader raid instance.

If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right. You will be automatically notified as we release movies that way.

The heroic Jaraxxus encounter is very similar to its non-heroic counterpart. As of the current version of patch 3.2, Jaraxxus recently received a hotfix that increases the spawn rate of adds significantly. This means for most guilds it is no longer viable to ignore adds and zerg down Jaraxxus.

Compared to normal mode, Jaraxxus gains a health buff of approximately 25% and a comparable damage buff as well. As for positioning, he should be kept in the middle of the room with ranged raid members spread out around him. A distance of 10 yards should be maintained between raid members.

This fight follows a simple pattern. 60 seconds after engaging Jaraxxus and every 60 seconds afterwards, Jaraxxus will spawn a door to the demonic world - he alternates between a portal and a volcano. In the heroic version, portals and volcanoes will keep spawning adds until they themselves are destroyed. That means as soon as a door to the nether spawns, all DPS need to switch their target to it and defeat it. If a raid member has trouble switching targets quickly, they should make target macros.

Nether Portals will spawn Mistresses of Pain until destroyed.They also deal 8500 AoE damage to everyone within 10 yards of the portal. Mistresses of Pain have around 400k health and deal about the same amount of melee damage that Jaraxxus deals. They will use the following abilities on heroic mode:

Spinning Pain Spike: This will throw a random raid member up into the air and inflict 70% of their maximum health as damage.
Mistress' Kiss: The next spell the afflicted person casts will interrupt that spell school for 8 seconds and deal around 9000 damage to the caster. If at all possible the afflicted person should cast a spell of a lesser-used school to avoid a lockout of their main school.

Volcanoes deal 9500 AoE damage to anyone within 10 yards of them and will spawn Fel Flame Infernals at a quick rate until destroyed. Occasionally they use the following abilities in succession:

Fel Streak: The infernal will charge over to a random raid member, inflict 6500 damage and trigger Fel Inferno, which is a channeled spell that in turn deals 3500 damage every second for 6 seconds to every raid member within 15 yards. This is also an aggro wipe and your off-tank will have to pick up the infernal again after it's done casting Fel Inferno.

As for Jaraxxus himself, his abilities barely change. Fel Fireball still needs to be interrupted or else will deal heavy amounts of damage on your tank. If someone fails to interrupt it, have someone ready to dispel the dot off the tank.

Incinerate Flesh now absorbs 40000 instead of 30000 damage but still causes Burning Inferno if the target doesn't get healed for 40k within that timeframe.

Anyone targetted by Legion Flame should aim to either kite the fire spawns backwards in a straight line or alternatively a small box as to minimize movement and afflicted area.

Fel Lightning had its damage upped to 10.5k and still affects up to three targets. This damage does not as sometimes mentioned increase per jump. However, Jaraxxus will often buff himself with five stacks of Nether Power, which increases his magic damage dealt by 20% per stack. This can be spellstolen or purged and dispelled. If your raid fails to take off the stacks immediately and he casts a fel lightning right after, they can easily kill a player, so do make sure to have someone watch for it.

Other than that, this fight only consists of the same repeating patterns and if you're quick at handling the adds, it shouldn't cause you too many problems after defeating Northrend Beasts!

Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- so if you'd like to learn more about that, just click the second link in the movie information box!

[Galushi]

This is slightly offtopic, but I've noticed that you're guild has a DW Frost Deathknight tank. I'm wondering how that has been working out for you. (Threat and Survival wise). I have a deathknight alt i play and i use 2h Frost for my tanking spec (dw frost for dps), and have considered switching to DW frosttank when i get some better weaponry. But i wasnt sure how it would hold up with more frequent but less potent rune strikes. Have you noticed any parry gib mechanics or is that a thing of the past?

[Splug]

This is slightly offtopic, but I've noticed that you're guild has a DW Frost Deathknight tank. I'm wondering how that has been working out for you. (Threat and Survival wise). I have a deathknight alt i play and i use 2h Frost for my tanking spec (dw frost for dps), and have considered switching to DW frosttank when i get some better weaponry. But i wasnt sure how it would hold up with more frequent but less potent rune strikes. Have you noticed any parry gib mechanics or is that a thing of the past?

The short answer is that parry is not the major factor everyone makes it out to be; it was a drastically larger concern in the pre-WotLK mechanics which included crushing blows. The longer version is to read threads such as this, where the avoidance gains from dual wielding are outlined. There are about 3-4 other threads regarding dual wielding on the first page of the theory and mechanics forum, and the major point to take away is that even using two fast weapons, your attacks-per-second is roughly comparable to a prot warrior. Threat seems to be more than sufficient; all attacks other than rune strike deal increased damage, autoattack deals increased damage, and rune strike's frequency increases sufficiently to offset the threat lost by damage-per-hit.

-Splug

[Kazeyonoma]

So, having already downed Jaraxxus hardmode 10man last week, we noticed he got considerably buffed this week. Is there any changes to strategies you'd suggest other than burn down the portals as fast as possible since they have less time between spawning adds?

Our biggest problem was that unless I constantly kited Jaraxxus, if a melee got legion flame, LJ ALWAYS casted his portal or internal volcano near or directly on top of the flame path (bad luck?). Once I added this movement factor it made keeping the ranged spread out evenly nearly impossible, and either people would move out of range of healers, and incinerate flesh would last too long, or fel lightning would chain to too many targets and drop healers/clothies dead.

Any ideas?

we had Blood DK Tank, Myself Prot Warrior, 1 Arms Warrior 1 Feral Druid, 1 Ele Shaman, 1 Hunter, 1 Mage, 1 Holy Paladin, 1 resto Druid, 1 Resto Shaman

[Splug]

There seem to be two exact positions that the portals/volcanos will spawn at assuming Jaraxxus does not move. I'm not sure if those positions remain fixed if he is relocated. However, once you see where the spawn locations are, just tell people to be sure not to drop fire on that location. It's also possible to reach the portals even if there's fire on one side of them.

-Splug

[Splug]

After the hot fix this week, we determined it is significantly more difficult to kill the portals before the second mistress, but it seems doable - particularly with bloodlust. Killing the volcanoes before the fourth infernal was easily achieved. Either way, we also determined killing two mistresses and four infernals per wave was slower, but not a big deal. The mistresses actually don't AE while they're being tanked - just during the jump - so tanking them on top of Jaraxxus ensures ranged can always reach the adds as well as takes advantage of melee splash damage.

-Splug

[Khue]

I would say that one of the biggest things you can do to push you over the edge is involve the Jaraxxus tank in downing the volcanoes and portals. We were having issues with the fight until I began applying a full round of sunders and using AOE moves to speed the portals down. I was notified by my heal core that the damage that I was taking in general was light to moderate which affords me the opportunity to assist where needed.

[Chakaal]

Just an idea for 10-men raiders...
My guild did the jaraxxus 10-men before the buff without many problems... but this week we couldn't manage to kill the portal before spawning 2 mistress (which almost resulted in someone dying).
What we tried and worked just fine is that I single tanked the encounter (prot pally), with the extra dpser we were able to kill the portal before the 2nd spawn

[Kojiyama]

We found it was most reliable for everyone in the raid to help out on the portals (the volcanos are less important) including the tanks and healers.

When we just left it to our DPS, we would occassionally get a 2nd mistress ~1 second prior to killing the portal, so some of the healers and the MT helping out is enough to make it a lot more consistant in terms of never getting a 2nd mistress.

[Swartz]

Is it feasible to single tank this encounter on 10 man in order to get more dps on the portals and adds? My group was having issues getting them down fast enough last time we tried it

[Granim]

Is it feasible to single tank this encounter on 10 man in order to get more dps on the portals and adds? My group was having issues getting them down fast enough last time we tried it

i have seen this solo tanked by our pally Mt on both 10h mode and then later 25h mode.

i have also solo tanked 10h mode with my war twice.

while yes it takes more work to tank, by the time the adds come up you should have plenty of threat on jaraxus that he sticks and switch back to him as the adds die.

of course tank takes extra damage.. but should not be an issue with a geared tank as long as fireballs are interupted and his stack is removed fast.

have found the extra dps makes a noticeable difference in the fight.

[Racci]

Something our raid noticed as far as positioning with the mistress portals / volcanos, is that he spawns them on his left side. We wanted to spawn them in the middle of the raid (with people clear of this area) and we were able to do so by facing him to the left so his left hand spawns the portal right in range of our dps so nobody has to run up and be more susceptible to chain lightning.

[Vengence]

I just watched the top video, as the DK tank and as one my self I would greatly treasure the low down on the addons used. Namly but not limited to the UI's, the timer bars for RuneStrike avoidance buff from the relic, HowlBlast CD, the buff from keeping bloodrunes on cooldowns. That would make it so much easier as a fellow tank, instead of having to find the small text timer in the top right of my screen.

Thanks

ps. can anyone assit with getting my signature image to display correctly?

[Kazeyonoma]

signature images are a privilege of donors only unfortunately to help with server stress.

[Vengence]

fail!, how about those addons?

[Dresk]

Fail indeed, become a donor so you can fix that ~.^

A problem my guild encountered on this fight (10 man heroic) was that we would lose melee dps to the mistress the instant she spawned. This is with a pally tank waiting ready for the spawn.

[Vengence]

since the elite add spawns in a fixed area, usually very close to LJ, try having them at max hit box range?

[drae]

It is correct that Jaraxxus only spawns portals on HIS left side. It's best to be careful in positioning the boss, as the portal can spawn in the coliseum wall, making it very difficult to dps the portal.

It can definitely be single tanked in both 10 and 25, normal and heroic. Just insure your DPS on the portals is good so you don't get more then one mistress. Personally, I always help out on portals, no matter the tanking set-up. My sunder's can make a difference!

The only thing that should kill the tank in this encounter is a 5+ stack fireball.

If your melee get Legion flames, kite him away from the fire a bit, but not too much. Obviously be ready to move for infernals.

It took us ~15 attempts to down Jaraxxus, and he is quite possibly the easiest heroic mode boss in the instance.

[Vengence]

nice video, i would love a read out on your addons, namly the cooldown bars for dodge buff, blade barrier, and howlingblast

[Bigdogcc]

Vengence try this link http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f120/...nterfaces.html


Has anyone tried to single tank this as a Dk?

We are a very melee heavy group and it has caused issues with getting volcanoes down fast enough we are thinking of adding one more melee dps (switching a tank) but not sure if it actually makes the healing more of a challenge since there is more AOE hitting more people.