General Vezax Strategy Guide - Ulduar (10) - WotLK Classic

Author: Passion
Date: January 6, 2023
Updated: February 10, 2023
Expansion: WotLK Classic

The commander and general of Yogg-Sarons faceless ones, General Vezax stands as the final barrier between any invaders and the old god’s prison. So corrupted by Yogg-Sarons presence that even the room he resides in defies any expectation.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with General Vezax and the despair that surrounds him.

Keep a close eye on your mana, it is not going to come back on its own!
Make sure searing-flames is interrupted, even if you are not assigned to it.

Avoid shadow-crash.
Make sure you are not close to any players with mark-of-the-faceless.
Utilize saronite-vapors to restore your mana, but be careful of the damage dealt.
Stand in the puddle left behind by shadow-crash when possible to increase your damage and reduce your mana costs.

Avoid shadow-crash and the puddle left behind by it.
Make sure you are not close to any players with mark-of-the-faceless.
Utilize saronite-vapors to restore your mana, but be careful of the damage dealt.

Make sure you interrupt searing-flames.
- 2-4 players should be assigned to do this on a rotation.

Mitigate the bonus damage on surge-of-darkness, either by using defensives or by kiting the boss.

Call out shadow-crash targets
Call out mark-of-the-faceless targets
Call out searing-flames casts
- Call out next on the interrupt rotation if the DPS aren’t calling this out themselves
Call out surge-of-darkness windows

Abilities

general-vezax

The primary mechanic of this fight, aura-of-despair reduces melee attack speed by 20% and prevents a large portion of mana recovery available to players. This does not include all forms of mana recovery.

Current testing on the PTR shows that the following spells do work for mana recovery:

Shaman
Paladin
Druid
- improved-leader-of-the-pack
- lifebloom
Hunter
- aspect-of-the-viper
- thrill-of-the-hunt
Priest
- rapture
- hymn-of-hope (Only the temporary mana granted, not the mana restoration!)

The following spells and abilities do *not* work for mana recovery:

Priest
- dispersion
- shadowfiend
Mage
- evocation
Warlock
- life-tap
Druid
- innervate
- revitalize
Paladin
- judgement-of-wisdom
Shared
- replenishment

Every 30 seconds Vezax will spawn a saronite-vapors that will drift around. Destroying this crystal will leave a puddle on the ground that can be stood in to restore mana. Standing in this puddle will also deal stacking damage to everyone in it.

Properly handling these crystals and puddles is the key to overcoming aura-of-despair, as this is the primary source of mana recovery for most of the raid.

Vezax fires a missile toward a random player, prioritizing ranged players. On impact, this deals high Shadow damage to everyone within 10 yards.

The area of impact also leaves a puddle behind that will give anyone standing it in increased magic damage, increased cast speed, reduced mana costs, and reduced healing done. Ranged DPS should always try to stand in this when possible, but Healers will need to avoid it.

Vezax applies a debuff to a random player, draining the health of all nearby players every second for 10 seconds, and healing himself massively for each tick of health drained.

Players will want to make sure they do not drain health from anyone else when debuffed with this, requiring everyone nearby to do their part in outranging the spell.

Vezax deals heavy Fire damage to all players, reducing their armor by 75%. This spell is interruptable and making sure no cast gets off is key to succeeding in this fight.

Vezax gains significantly higher physical damage but moves significantly slower for 10 seconds. This is a tankbuster mechanic and will require most tanks to kite the boss to avoid taking any buffed hits.

saronite-animus (Hard Mode)

If Hard Mode is activated, Vezax will gain saronite-barrier as long as the Saronite Animus is alive. This reduces damage dealt to Vezax by 99%, effectively making him invincible until the Animus is dealt with.

The Animus will consistently deal a small amount of Shadow damage to all players, applying a stacking debuff that increases their Shadow damage taken for each stack. With significantly reduced mana during this fight, this puts a very effective timer on the raid to kill the Animus.

Raid Composition & Preparation

This fight has no specific class or spec requirements, and as long as your group can out-heal the damage and keep up with aura-of-despair‘s impact, you should be able to pull through.

You will want 2-3 Healers for this fight, with a focus on efficient healing to sustain mana during the fight.

There are no strict requirements for DPS classes or specs here, you simply want a combination of good raid buffs and debuffs, as well as the best players you can muster.

You will need 1-2 tanks for this fight, depending on your strategy.

Hard Mode

Hard Mode for Vezax can be a large barrier, requiring the raid to not kill any saronite-vapors, instead letting 6 of them be active at the same time. Once all 6 are spawned, they will create a Saronite Animus, a secondary boss that you will have to fight alongside Vezax.

The Animus will have to be dealt with before you can go back to fighting Vezax, as he will be almost entirely immune to damage while it is alive.

This does not significantly change the mechanics of the fight, but it does drastically affect the raids access to mana over the course of the fight.

Completing this encounter on Hard Mode will add the following loot to the drop table

The Pull

Before engaging Vezax, make sure the entire room is cleared of trash mobs. Players will want to start the fight loosely spread to make the initial casts of shadow-crash and mark-of-the-faceless as easy as possible.

Healers will want to try to position themselves close to melee, drastically reducing their chances of being targeted by either shadow-crash or mark-of-the-faceless.

The Fight

This fight has no extra phases, so outside of Hard Mode, this fight will effectively be the same the entire way through.

Melee players will want to have an interrupt rotation, making sure that searing-flames never finishes a cast. This is vital to the encounter and one stray cast could be the difference between a kill and a wipe.

Tanks have relatively little to worry about, with their primary focus being on surge-of-darkness. When this is cast, tanks can either try to kite the boss, but this can have issues with the general positioning of the rest of the raid, or they can use defensives to tank through the damage.

The main bulk of this encounter happens at range, placing almost all of the burden on ranged players. Ranged DPS will want to be spread, generally, to avoid mark-of-the-faceless and shadow-crash killing the players around them. This becomes a bit more difficult when you add in the two puddles, from shadow-crash and saronite-vapors. Ranged players will want to stand in these puddles to either deal maximum damage or maintain their mana.

Because of these two stacking mechanics, players will need to be on their toes at all times to avoid being hit by both shadow-crash and mark-of-the-faceless. This responsibility falls on everyone, so make sure you are all awake!

Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this fight:

Players fail to avoid shadow-crash or mark-of-the-faceless
Players stay in saronite-vapors for too long, killing them
searing-flames is not interrupted, wiping the raid
Tanks die to the surge-of-darkness damage increase
Healers mismanage their mana, running out of mana before the fight is finished

Achievements

shadowdodger-10
- Defeat Vezax without any raid member being hit by shadow-crash. This requires every player in the raid to be on their toes at all times to make sure they do not get hit.
i-love-the-smell-of-saronite-10
- Defeat Vezax on Hard Mode, by killing the Saronite Animus first.

Congratulations on defeating General Vezax! Proceed through the hallway behind him, activating the final teleporter before you come face to face with the old god himself, Yogg-Saron.

About the Author

Passion

I love MMOs of all shades, especially the nitty gritty numbers parts of them. You might recognize me from the Shadow Priest discord, otherwise I play a little bit of everything, especially games with support roles available.