Serpentshrine Cavern - Lady Vashj

[Shadowwolf]

Links:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Lady_Vashj_(tactics)
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=265

Video:

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Abilities:

Lady Vashj can be damaged only in phases 1 and 3. During phase 2 lots of adds spawn, and her shield has to be switched off. Sporebat adds appear in phase 3.

Lady Vashj
Lady Vashj can be taunted.
Phase 1 and 3 abilities:

• Melee - Normal 3,000, 4,000-6,000 crushing on plate
• [spell=38295]Shoot[/spell] - A ranged ability that hits for 4,000-5,500 damage, used only if nobody is in melee range
• [spell=38310]Multi-Shot[/spell] - A ranged ability that hits a target and 4 surrounding people for 6,500 - 7,500 damage
• [spell=38509]Shock Blast[/spell] - Randomly deals about 9000 nature damage to her current target with a 5 sec stun, drop aggro during the stun
• [spell=38316]Entangle[/spell] - random target within 15 yards, 10 sec immobilize plus 500 damage per tick. Not resistible, not mitigated by armor, but reduced by resilience. Removable by Blessing of Freedom, shapeshifting, and the PVP Trinkets.
• [spell=38280]Static Charge[/spell] - debuff doing about 2000 damage per tick to its target and anyone within 5 yards for 15 sec. No durability loss if killed by this effect.

Phase 2 ability:

• [spell=38145]Forked Lightning[/spell] - Random bolts of lightning that hit for 2,300-2,600 nature damage in a frontal cone. Not resistible.

Enchanted Elemental
Many of these elementals spawn continuously from the water at the foot of the stairs during phase 2.

• 7700 HP
• Immune to frost damage and effects
• Immune to snares and crowd control
• Slowly moves towards Lady Vashj and increases her damage output by 5% if it reaches her

Tainted Elemental
Every 50 seconds, one Tainted Elemental spawns instead of an enchanted elemental.

• 7700 HP
• [spell=38253]Poison Bolt[/spell] - random target, 1885-2115 nature damage plus 8 sec poison debuff for 2000 damage per tick
• Immune to frost effects and damage
• Does not move
• Despawns after 15 seconds
• Drops a [item]Tainted Core[/item] when killed

Coilfang Elite
Every 45 seconds one Coilfang Elite spawns in the area on top of the stairs.

• 175000 HP
• Melee ~5k on plate
• [spell=38260]Cleave[/spell] - 7.5k on plate in a frontal arc
• [spell=38262]Hamstring[/spell]
• Immune to Fear
• Tauntable

Coilfang Strider
Every 60 seconds one Coilfang Strider spawns on top of the stairs.

• 175000 HP
• Melee - 4500 - 8000 on tanks
• [spell=38259]Mind Blast[/spell] - 3000 shadow damage
• Panic Aura - 8 yard AoE Fear every tick, 5 sec fear duration plus 150% run speed buff
• Tauntable

Spore Bats
During phase 3, these bats spawn. At first they're few, but their number steadily increases.

• [spell=38575]Toxic Spores[/spell] - Poison cloud AoE 1,500 nature damage per second

Suggested Strategy:

Phase 1
Spread the raid out as shown in picture 1 and keep Lady Vashj in the center area. Since Lady Vashj is tauntable, it's wise to use 2 tanks in case of an Entangle, Shock Blast or Static Charge on the MT. You wan't to make sure that Lady Vashj doesn't get a chance to Multi Shot, it really hurts. Have the people effected by Static Charge run out of the center area until the debuff wears of. If someone in melee gets Static Charge it's very important that healers are paying attenion, especially if the effected target is also entangled. At 70% Phase 2 starts.

• Shaman should be in the MT group and permanently keep a [spell=8177]Grounding Totem[/spell] up in order to nullify the Shock Burst
• Paladins should put a [spell=1044]Blessing of Freedom[/spell] on the MT if he gets rooted
• The off-tank should be ready to taunt her and take over if the MT is stunned or rooted anyways

[attachimg=1]

Phase 2
Four shielding generators spawn in the middle of the room shielding Lady Vashj from all damage. Lady Vashj becomes immobile and immune to all kinds of damage in the center of the room. For the entire phase she will do nothing else then cast Forked Lightning over and over again.

Now you need to create four teams of 1-2 DPS and 1 healer for the four marked areas in picture 2, make these teams consist of all the melee DPS you have in the raid and a couple of ranged DPS if needed. The four teams should deal with all the Enchanted and Tainted Elementals that spawn from each respective area. Have the remaining DPS in the raid position in the middle of the room and kill all the Coilfang Elites and Striders that spawn. Striders should be killed first and all of the mobs should be fully dotted all the time. Phase 2 is all about DPS and not letting any Tainted Elemental despawn.

At the start of phase 2, there's a brief lull for about 40 seconds, during which time everybody can make sure they're at the right position. There are 12 stairs, many raids divide them into four sections of 3 stairs each (N, W, S and E), and assign a team of two ranged damage dealers and one healer to each section. The enchanted elementals have rather low HP, and a single damage dealer can kill one easily before it reaches the Lady. Unfortunately they're frost immune, so frost mages have to somewhat deviate from their standard practice.

• Coilfang Elites are tanked and killed by the tanks and melee damage dealers
• Coilfang Striders are kited and killed by DoTs. Every class able to cast a DoT should help on this (even healers)
• Killing Enchanted Elementals is the main business of all ranged damage dealers
• Tainted Elementals must be killed, their [item]Tainted Core[/item] looted and used to switch off the shield generators. This task requires teamwork, each raid has to develop a tactic to handle it.

Coilfang Striders need to be kited. The usual techniques work fine, particularly with an affliction warlock or an elemental shaman as kiter. The kiting should take place in a wide circle outside the shield generators. It's a good idea to have a lot of DoTs on the strider. Everybody able to cast a dot (even the healers) should all put DoTs on the strider whenever it comes in range. In order to make kiting easier, slow it down as much as possible. All classes should use all means available (mages should spam slow, shamans use frost shock, CoEx from Warlocks, Paladins can Hammer it whenver it gets close). Of course, the kiter must not have Salvation. Tailors should bring [item]Netherweave Net[/item] and liberally use them.

Every time a [item]Tainted Core[/item] is used to disable a shield generator Lady Vashj looses 5% HP. When all the four shield generators are disabled Lady Vash is at 50% and Phase 3 starts.

[attachimg=2]

[attach=3]

Phase 3

This is basically Phase 1 again, with a twist - Spore Bats start to spawn. They come slowly at first, but gradually their number increases to the point where it becomes very hard to avoid the AoE poison. This usually occurs at around 4 minutes into the Phase.

At first, all remaining phase 2 adds must be killed. During the first few minutes of Phase 3, the spore bats can be controlled by a few hunters or warlocks dedicated to killing them. When they become too many to handle the Spore Bat killers should switch to Vashj. The top of the west stairs is a good position from which to kill the Spore Bats.

In effect, the Spore Bats are sort of an Enrage timer. Knowing how to avoid the poison patches, and having a skilled tank keeping her on the move can make quite a difference to the lethality of this "enrage".

Useful Macros:

The simplest macro tries to throw the core at the current target, whispers the receiver that he's got it, and also announces the fact in yell and say.

Code Select Expand

/use Tainted Core
/y <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/s <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE THE CORE !!!", "WHISPER", nil, UnitName("target"));

For netting striders and notifying the current target of the strider (also works for the Pally stun, just replace /use with /cast Hammer of Justice):

Code Select Expand

/use Netherweave Net
/script SendChatMessage(string.format("Netting %s's Strider!",UnitName("targettarget")),"YELL");
/script SendChatMessage("Netting your Strider!", "whisper",nil,UnitName("TargetTarget"));

[fiere redfern]

An additional note about the [item]Tainted Core[/item] - according to wowhead, having it in your bags roots you, and it can't be dispelled. The only way to get rid of the root is to toss the core from player to player until it reaches someone in range of the pillars. (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31088#comments)

[Air]

A picture I found a little awhile ago that should help out.

[attachthumb=#]

[khader]

Video of different tactic for Lady Vashj.

Still split up raid to deal with elementals but for the most part the raid ignores the naga.  This might make it a bit less chaotic so dps can focus on striders and elementals.  Have 1 or 2 melee dps on the naga until generator's are down then only a tank keeping them busy until vashj is dead.  Also looks like the naga despawn when vashj's death.

[youtube=425,350]http://youtube.com/watch?v=XMVV2NgN4Ww[/youtube]

[Kothnok]

Found and tweaked a more developed macro for the tainted cores.  This macro will not spam or whisper if the person targetted is out of range; nor will it give an error for <no target>.  If the person you were going to throw it to is out of range, they are sent a whisper to move closer to you.

Code Select Expand

/use Tainted Core
/run f=SendChatMessage w="WHISPER"c="Tainted Core"t="target"u=UnitName(t) if (IsItemInRange(c,t)==1) and (u~=nil) then f("You have the "..c,w,nil,u)f(u.." has "..c,"RAID")elseif (u~=nil) then f("Get closer for core!",w,nil,u)end

[Avelandra]

I discovered that Mages can blink with core. I managed to get from the bottom of the stairs to near the top with the core. I could of turned off a generator in 1 more blink. Dunno if this is a good thing, or if it can help, but its worth mentioning.

[Riddlerr]

Good discovery, once u said that in the raid, I tried that when i was out of reach and BAM blinked right into the generator. Being able to shut the one off. Thnks

[Air]

I've been reading up on this fight and best possible ways to do.

-- phase 1 and 3 -- instead of tanking her in the middle, have mt and ot kite her around edge of platform.  Doing this will make kiting her around easier to handle the spore clouds.

-- phase 2 --
have 3 hunters, bm preferrably and 2 destro warlocks dpsing the elementals.  Hunters do a normal shot rotation with pets on the mobs. and Warlocks dotting and shadow bolting a elemental.  When tainted elemental pops up, immediately start dpsing it.  Forget about the regular elementals, have melee finish off any stragglers.

have affliction warlock, frost mage, and shadow priest dpsing the striders.  With the warlock getting top threat on strider, and if possible curse of exhaustion to help to slow strider down.  mage doing frost bolts to slow strider, and shadow priest dotting sw:p and mind flay to slow strider down.

have a pally tank nagas as they come out, multi-tanking if dps is slow.  have all melee dps on nagas, make sure to stand behind to avoid as much damage as possible.

melee needs to keep an eye on elementals, if any get halfway to vashj, stop dps on nagas, and immediately finish off any remaining elementals.

have a healer near each generator, range dps targets healers to give tainted cores to.  healers should be able to target other healers to get tainted core to the right generator.

when 4th generator is left, mt and ot be ready to pick up vashj and start kiting again.

-- phase 3 --
same as phase 1, but with spore bats and nasty green clouds of death.  dps any remaining nagas and striders, do so asap.  2 options now, have hunters focus on killing spore bats, until its a waste of time.  Or, all out dps forgoing spore bats.  tanks kiting vashj around the edge of platform, we than shouldn't have to worry about spore bats. also by kiting her it allows to handle her enrage much easier if dps is slow.

[Avelandra]

Good plan, will require a lot of corrdination, but it should work.

[Vengeance]

Question, would a lock on phase 3 just seeding the bats help at all? They have about 6900 health, and about 3-4 seeds will kill that.
Another thing is that people on the strider need to be aware that another one will spawn in 60 seconds. Last attempt had a strider actually spawn on me, which caused a fear, and then the 1st strider caught up and feared me again, eventually killing me. Either the frost mage or the spriest need to immediately pick up that 2nd strider so the aff lock can have time to gain aggro on it. I'm not sure of this but i believe there is a specific spawn point for striders. If not, all 3 strider kiters need to be on top of the 2nd strider before he eats people.
As i've heard, picking up the nagas can be a problem...we need to MD the naga tank as often as possible when they spawn. Not doing so may result in a healer's death, which is a possible wipe. 

[capnpop]

Seeding would only be effective if the sporebats were close to each other but the loss of DPS can be hurtful to prolong the fight and drain the healers...

[Air]

I get most of my information from here: http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t12533-lady_vashj/,  It's a long read but some really good information being given.

Pretty much seed won't work because the spore bats are spaced to far apart for it work. 

Dps is pretty important in phase 3.  Her enrage timer isn't very forgiving.  It's a manageable enrage, more like dragonhawk boss from za, than say a void reaver one.

[Air]

Slight change to how I said to do Vashj earlier.

-- phase 2 --
For striders, have pally's stun them to help with warlocks to get a searing pain off for extra threat.  Having around 4-5 range dps for striders would be good.  When strider group isn't killing striders, help out with killing naga's.  Controlling the naga's and strider's in phase 2 the most important thing.  Shadow priests might have a hard time threat wise on dpsing striders, Having a destro warlock kite should be able to overcome that.

Have 4 or so melee dps on naga's.  If any extra melee, say prot warriors or prot pally's, help with cleaning up elementals that get close to vashj and to help healers move around tainted core's to correct generator.

Elemental group, same as before 3 hunters, 2 warlocks.  Having the warlock be affliction should pretty much kill elementals before they get to vashj from dots.

-- phase 3 --
Same as before, have hunters focus on dpsing spore bats and not Vashj.  Killing spore bats should give the rest of raid dps 3-4 mins of pure dps with no kiting needed to get out of the green goo.  Supposedly it's the spore bat's that enrage after 4 mins or so and not Vashj.  Have range dps stand in the middle while Vashj is kited counter clockwise around the outer platform.  Also, having a shaman in Tank group grounding totem should help with MT getting stunned.

Found another video that might help with Vashj.  It's a computer generated howto on Vashj.  Does placement, how many dps on what, how to handle tainted cores and generators and so on.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr47Fi7evvg[/youtube]

[Grendeel]

A destro warlock simply cant kite a stryder.  They dont have any ability to slow them down.  Its what we have tried in the past and the locks have died fast. Not only do they not have a slowing effect, they also cant dps while moving. 

[Air]

Another strat on her, http://www.raidguru.net/index.php?page=17 has some really good first hand info there that might help.

Has some pictures on where to stand for elemental duty.