| Name | Serpentshrine Cavern: Lady Vashj |
| Category | Dungeon |
This is the final installation of the Serpentshrine Cavern instance guide. The guide talks about how to defeat Lady Vashj, the Coilfang Matron. Good luck!
Now only one boss remains inside this huge watery instance. You have killed the five initial bosses inside Serpentshrine Cavern, and Lady Vashj remains at her throne. Also, since patch 2.4, Lady Vashj can be reached without killing the other bosses first for their consoles. This makes reaching and killing Lady Vashj much faster, for those guilds only needing stuff from Lady Vashj alone.
Lady Vashj
The final boss of the Serpentshrine Cavern. She still serves Illidan, and has one of the vials from the Well of Eternity. This vial is one of the items needed for being attuned to the Battle of Mount Hyjal, but since patch 2.4, being attuned is no longer needed to enter the Battle of Mount Hyjal raid instance. The attunement quest still remains though, for you to be able to acquire the Scale of the Sands epic rings.
Reaching Lady Vashj
To reach Lady Vashj, you need to clear the initial mobs linked to Hydross the Unstable, as well as the center platform mobs linked to The Lurker Below if you haven't killed these bosses yet. You don't need to clean up all 6 platforms of mobs to reach Lady Vashj's console, only the first 5 platforms. If The Lurker Below is already dead, you don't need to worry about the trash mobs at all since you can just swim to the center platforms and just walk to her console.
Lady Vashj's console is located at the eastern platform (5th platform). You will notice it immediately since the console is rather large. Once you click the console to activate it, there will be a short event of raising the large bridge connecting the platform with the Lady Vashj console and Lady Vashj's lair. After the event, you can then proceed to Lady Vashj's lair. Lady Vashj is immediately there at her platform once you have crossed the bridge, so you don't need to worry about trash mobs.
Raid Composition
1 Main Tank
1 Off Tank
1 Ranged Kiter
7-8 Healers
Remaining slots for DPS (with more ranged than melee)
Key Abilities
Shoot - Lady Vashj's ranged attack. Deals around 4000-5500 physical damage, and is only used when no one is in melee range. Only used in phases 1 and 3.
Multi Shot - Lady Vashj's heavy ranged attack. Deals around 6475-7525 physical damage to a target and 4 other near the target. Since it is a ranged attack, Lady Vashj uses this ability only when there are no one in melee range. Only used in phases 1 and 3.
Shock Blast - Lady Vashj's nuke spell. She occasionally does this to her current target (the main tank) and deals 8325-9675 nature damage and stuns for 5 seconds. During the stun, aggro is dropped, so make sure the offtank is ready. Grounding totem is greatly recommended here to avoid having the main tank spiked and stunned. Only used in phases 1 and 3.
Entangle - Lady Vashj's root spell. She occasionally does this spell to immobilize everyone within 15 yards around Lady Vashj for 10 seconds. While rooted, players take 500 nature damage every 2 seconds. Since this is an immobilize effect, abilities like Blessing of Freedom, shapeshifting and using PvP trinkets will remove the effect. Lady Vashj primarily uses this ability to be able to move to range, so that she can use her ranged attacks. Only used in phases 1 and 3.
Static Charge - Lady Vashj's special ability. Occasionally used on random persons in the raid. When Lady Vashj uses this ability on a player, he will have a debuff that will continually damage him and everyone within 5 yards around him for 1619-1881 nature damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. The person with the debuff needs to move away from everyone else so as not to deal additional damage. This person needs to be healed as well as long as he has the debuff on him. Only used in phases 1 and 3.
Forked Lightning - Lady Vashj's main ability in phase 2. This is the only ability that Lady Vashj does while in a shield during phase 2. This ability affects several people in a frontal cone where Lady Vashj casts. This spell deals around 2300-2600 nature damage. Normally, Lady Vashj targets random people for this ability and casts it on them and anyone near that target will be hit as well. It cannot be outranged and line of sight does not affect this spell, so the damage should just need to be healed through.
Phase 2 Adds
Enchanted Elemental - blue water elementals which spawn everywhere along the bottom of the stairs around Lady Vashj's platform. They move slowly and doesn't attack. They will move continuously until they reach Lady Vashj in the middle. If they reach Lady Vashj, they will power Lady Vashj up and will increase her damage by 5% for every elemental that reaches her. These elementals are immune to snares and crowd control effects, as well as frost damage and effects. They only have little health so killing them should be easy.
Tainted Elemental - green water elementals which spawn randomly anywhere along the bottom of the stairs around Lady Vashj's platform. Tainted Elemental spawns replace an Enchanted Elemental spawn every 50 seconds. They stay on where they spawn and will continuously cast Poison Bolts on random targets. These poison bolts deal 1885-2115 nature damage initially, and applies a poison debuff for 8 seconds which deals 2000 nature damage per tick. This poison is pretty deadly so it should be cleansed immediately.
When the Tainted Elemental dies, a Tainted Core drops from it and it should be looted immediately before it despawns. The Tainted Elemental despawns after 15 seconds, so whenever one spawns, it should be killed and looted fast. Like Enchanted Elementals, they are immune to frost damage and effects, as well as having small health so killing them fast should not be a problem.
Coilfang Elite - melee naga which spawns every 45 seconds below the stairs on a random side. They move fast and will usually target a healer nearby, so the tanks should be alert and pick it up immediately as soon as it appears. They deal heavy melee damage and has a cleave, so melee should be careful of not going in front of them. As soon as the tanks gain aggro on them, they need to be brought to the center fast, where all the melee DPS are waiting. These Coilfang Elites have around 175000 health, so it should take some time for the melee to kill one. Just make sure to kill them as fast as the melee DPS can, so that the tanks won't get overrun.
Coilfang Strider - strider mob which spawns every 60 seconds below the stairs on a random side. Can cast Mind Blast which deals 3000 shadow damage to its target, and periodically casts an 8 yard AoE fear every 2 seconds. This AoE fear lasts for 5 seconds and makes anyone affected by it move faster. This is the deadliest and most challenging phase 2 add. Once this strider spawns, it needs to be picked up immediately by the ranged kiter and try to kite it around the perimeter of Lady Vashj's platform.
It can be slowed, stunned or rooted, so make sure the ranged kiter has an ability which can slow the strider down, or stun it for a moment. While being kited, ranged DPS should be killing it as fast as they can without pulling aggro off the kiter. Also, no one should be staying along the kite path, or they will just get feared around. Similar to the Coilfang Elites, the strider has about 175000 health.
Phase 3 Adds
Toxic Spore Bat - spore bat mobs which start to spawn when phase 3 starts. They spawn slowly initially, then increase in number as time passes, eventually overrunning the raid. They fly high above Lady Vashj's platform and will spit out poison on the ground, which creates a small puddle of deadly poison on the ground. This poison deals moderate nature damage to anyone standing on it every second, so these puddles should be avoided at all costs. Of course, the tank should be moving around when he sees poison patches nearby so the melee can safely DPS. These spore bats can be killed, so having ranged classes assigned to killing these bats can help prolong the soft enrage from these spore bats.
The fight consists of 3 phases. Lady Vashj's aggro range is fairly large, and would aggro anyone who stands on top of her platform, so basically the raid should start by the stairs. Before engaging, let everyone know their assigned tasks for phase 2, because this phase is the hardest phase in the boss fight.
Positioning and Assignments
Stair Duty
Looking at Lady Vashj's platform, you can see it is a decagonal platform, with a flight of stairs on each side. There are a few sides that has an obstacle, so these sides should be ignored. From the side where you came from (bridge side) are 4 flights of steps (with one partially covered by a debris). This side should be the first side. Going counterclockwise, pass through the debris on the right and there should be 2 flights of stairs in between the debris and a pillar. This should be the 2nd side.
Continuing further, there should be 5 flights of stairs. This whole back side should be divided into two and will be classified as the 3rd and 4th sides. Now that the sides are known, DPS should be assigned per side accordingly. One to two DPS, ranged preferred, can be assigned per side. Their job is to kill all incoming Enchanted Elementals and prevent them from reaching Lady Vashj. Also, when a Tainted Elemental spawns, its their job to focus on it as top priority and kill it immediately, then loot the Tainted Core from it before it despawns.
Once the Tainted Core is looted, the person who looted will be rooted in place until he throws the core to somebody else. This core is very important since it is the key to reach phase 3. Tainted Core details will be discussed later. Together with the DPS on the stairs, a healer would be stationed at the top of the stairs. Since there are 4 stair sides, there should be 4 healers all spread out around Lady Vashj's platform. These healers are primarily raid healers.
Generator Duty
At the center of Lady Vashj's platform, you will see 4 small pillar structures situated around the inner circle of her platform. These are the Shield Generators which provide the shield for Lady Vashj during phase 2. To deactivate the Shield Generators, a Tainted Core is needed, so to deactivate all 4 generators, 4 Tainted Cores are needed. And since having a Tainted Core immobilizes you, people should be positioned just beside the generators, so that a core can be thrown to them and they can deactivate a generator without a problem.
This is where the tank healers should be. If there are enough healers, 4 main healers should be stationed beside the generators, with 1 healer on each generator. This way, they will be in charge of deactivating the generators when a core is passed to them. Also, they can safely heal the tanks in the middle, as well as raid heal at some point. Paladins and Druids are most suitable for this job since they can basically reach everyone, and they can remove poison when a Tainted Elemental spawns.
Elite Duty
This is where the main tank and off tank goes when its on phase 2. Both tanks, as well as every melee assigned to killing elites will stay beside Lady Vashj at the center. These melee DPS are assigned to kill Coilfang Elites while they are tanked at the center, as well as killing "leakers" when Tainted Elementals appear. Every 45 seconds, a Coilfang Elite will appear on a random side. The tanks need to be aware of this and should go and meet the elite before it kills a healer, then bring it back to the center where the melee can kill it safely.
Since only 1 elite spawns every 45 seconds, a tank will become idle at some point. This idle tank should be the one looking for the next elite spawn, then bringing it back to the center for killing. Make sure while bringing to the center, the tanks won't drag the elite in front of anyone to avoid having people get cleaved. Melee DPS should be hitting elites from the back to avoid cleaves as well. This will continue until just before phase 3, where the main tank should be free from tanking and will be able to grab Lady Vashj as soon as the last generator goes down.
Strider Duty
This can be the hardest duty for phase 2. For every 60 seconds, a huge Coilfang Strider will start to come up the stairs from a random side. When this happens, the ranged kiter should be ready to pick it up immediately and start kiting around Lady Vashj's platform. The kite path should be the area in between the inner circle and the edge of the platform. All remaining ranged DPS, preferrably shadow priests, warlocks and mages should be focusing on killing the strider as fast as possible before the next one spawns. They can stay anywhere on the platform, but they need to be careful when the strider will pass by them.
Safe places to stay would be just at the edge of the inner circle, or at the edge of the whole platform. Staying at the edge of the platform will most likely have them move to catch the strider. If they stay at the edge of the inner circle, they will have more coverage and will not have to move to reach the strider. For the kiter, suitable candidates for this task would be elemental shamans, hunters, frost mages, as well as warlocks with Curse of Exhaustion.
Elemental shamans can be the perfect candidate for it since they have Frost Shock which they can spam every 6 seconds, which causes a ton of aggro and slows down the strider as well. Remember that striders are vulnerable to stuns and immobilizing effects. If you have enough tailors around, they can make Netherweave Nets which can immobilize the strider for a few seconds, giving the kiter some time to cast more offensive spells/abilities on the strider for more threat. Healers make sure to heal the kiter as well, since the strider does a Mind Blast on him occasionally.
Grounding Shaman
During phases 1 and 3, Lady Vashj will occasionally use Shock Blast on the main tank to stun him. When this happens, aggro on the main tank drops while he is stunned, making Lady Vashj go for the next target on the aggro table. If the next one is not the off tank, things can go ugly. Also, the Shock Blast deals a fairly heavy nature damage on the tank, so if the tank was not topped off and Lady Vashj does the Shock Blast, it can kill the tank. To prevent these ugly things from happening, it is recommended to place a shaman in the main tank group to provide him constant Grounding Totem. The totem will easily redirect the Shock Blasts from Lady Vashj, making the tank fairly safe from being stunned.
Tank Freedom
During phases 1 and 3 as well, Lady Vashj will occasionally use Entangle which immobilizes anyone within 15 yards around Lady Vashj. Once entangled, Lady Vashj will move away and will try to use her ranged attacks, which are pretty deadly. To prevent Lady Vashj from using her ranged attacks, the main tank should be freely moving all the time. Blessing of Freedom takes care of Entangles on the tank, so make sure the paladins have it planned on who uses Blessing of Freedom on the tank when Entangles happen.
Of course, putting Blessing of Freedom on the tank removes the existing blessing put on the tank previously, so make sure when the paladin's BoF runs out, he should reapply his assigned blessing on the tank immediately. Having Blessing of Kings removed from the tank can be pretty dangerous too, so if possible, don't have the BoK pally put BoF on the tank. Just have the other paladins do it.
Phase 1
Now that the assignments are done, you are pretty much ready for the fight. Buff up by the stairs, then as soon as its time to pull, put Blessing of Freedom on the tank. This prevents premature entangles on the tank. Once the tank starts to run up to Lady Vashj, everyone else should do the same and move on top of the platform. Everyone should start spreading out once Lady Vashj gets engaged so that Static Charges won't kill everyone.
Grounding Totem should be down all the time for the Shock Blasts, and paladins need to be alert for Entangles. The whole of phase 1 lasts until Lady Vashj reaches 70% health. This phase is more of just a tank-and-spank phase. For Static Charges on melee, they just need to move away from the bulk of the melee if anyone has it. If the tank has it, all other melee should move away until the Static Charge on the tank expires. When Lady Vashj reaches 70% health, she will move to the center and shield herself. Phase 2 begins.
Phase 2
Once Lady Vashj reaches 70% health, she moves to the center and shields herself, becoming immune to anything while the generators are up. This is the phase where everyone gets busy with all the adds spawning. Once phase 2 starts, everyone should start moving to their designated locations. Melee and tanks go to the center, the main healers assigned to generators move beside their assigned generator, as well as people on Stair/Strider Duties need to move to their positions.
The raid leader should set the looting to Free For All for the whole of phase 2, to avoid complications on looting Tainted Cores. At this point, things are still calm since there are only Enchanted Elementals spawning. Stair Duty people need to kill these elementals immediately to prevent them from reaching Lady Vashj. After 45 seconds have passed, a Coilfang Elite should have started spawning.
Tanks need to keep an eye on where it spawned and go there immediately to meet up with it before it goes to a healer and smacks him dead. The tank with the elite needs to bring the elite back to the center so the melee can start DPS on it. After 5 seconds on the elite spawn (50 seconds now), a Tainted elemental should have spawned somewhere. Stair Duty DPS needs to be aware of this and should divert attention to them immediately.
Tainted Elementals should be more important than Enchanted Elementals, since there are melee above the platform that can still kill 'leaker' elementals. Once a Tainted Elemental is killed, it needs to be looted immediately and get its Tainted Core. This Tainted Core needs to be passed around and then used on the generators to deactivate them. Every deactivated generator costs Lady Vashj 5% of her health. Once all 4 generators are deactivated (Lady Vashj is at 50% health), phase 3 begins which is very similar to phase 1.
At the 60 second mark, a Coilfang Strider should have started to spawn somewhere, and the ranged kiter needs to look for it and get it immediately. Once its tagged and aggro is on the ranged kiter, he needs to kite it around the platform, with ranged DPS doing damage on the strider as fast as they can without pulling aggro off the kiter. At this point, everyone should be busy with their own tasks. Timers on spawns are continuous, so everyone needs to be aware of spawns and just focus on whatever task you are assigned to.
The Tainted Core
During phase 2, at every 50 second interval, a Tainted Elemental will replace an Enchanted Elemental spawn. This spawn is random on any side, so every Stair Duty person should be on alert for green water elemental spawning. Once a Tainted Elemental is seen, inform the raid on where it is so the raid will know where the Tainted Core will come from. Kill the Tainted Elemental immediately, and then loot it as soon as possible.
Once looted, you will have a Tainted Core in your bag. This is a unique item which is needed for deactivating a Shield Generator. While holding on to a Tainted Core, you are immobilized. Basically, to get the Tainted Core to the center, you need to pass the Tainted Core around until it reaches someone by the generator. When it reaches this person beside the generator, the person can click on the generator to deactivate it using the Tainted Core that was passed to him.
Think of this as a football game. As soon as someone gets the 'ball' off the Tainted Elemental, he needs to pass the 'ball' around to people until it reaches the 'goal' person, which does the 'touchdown' on the Shield Generator. Sounds easy? It IS pretty easy, but with everything that is currently happening on the raid during phase 2, throwing Tainted Cores around can be very hard.
Some issues with Tainted Core are:
- person is out of range from you
- accidental passing of Tainted Core to the ranged kiter or elite tanks
- not being able to loot the Tainted Elemental immediately
- not being able to kill the Tainted Elemental immediately
- passing the Tainted Core to wrong targets
- not aware of the Tainted Core being passed to you
Most of these issues cause delays on getting Shield Generators deactivated. They don't usually cause a wipe, just prolongs phase 2 more. The only ones that cause a wipe are those accidental passes to tanks, especially to the strider kiter. Generally, tanks are already busy tagging their mobs here and there. Elite tanks are moving in and out of the center circle to meet elites and to bring them to the center.
If a core is accidentally passed to a tank meeting an elite, or bringing it back to the center, it can be bad since he will get stuck. While stuck, the strider might already be there passing by, which can get him feared. Someone might be in front of the elite too, and the tank won't be able to move because the core is passed to him. Of course, the tank can just go and pass the core immediately to someone else, but being in the very busy phase 2, it might cause confusion and panic.
This is also applicable to having the core passed to the ranged kiter. This is worst than having the elite tank catch the core, since the ranged kiter is basically moving continually to kite the strider, and to pass the core to the kiter just means the kiter would just die a horrible death due to not being able to move. To fix these issues, everyone needs to calm down and not panic in phase 2.
Even though its very busy with all the individual tasks, you need to focus and still be on alert for Tainted Core passing. If you have voice communication, you can tell who you are going to pass the Tainted Core to. Also, you can just talk with your Stair Duty companions on how you will pass the core when a Tainted Elemental spawns on your side.
Essentially, passing the core takes around 3-4 passes from the looter. The person who loots passes it to someone at the top, or almost at the top of the stairs. After this, the person passes it on a ranged DPS on top of the platform which is in line of sight. From this point, the 'cored' person can just pass it to a Generator guy and they can go activate it immediately, or pass it to another generator guy if his own generator is already deactivated.
Sometimes, people are too busy and won't notice that they have the core until later or they realized they can't move due to the core. To help people on this, and to facilitate easy core passing, here is a simple macro for passing Tainted Cores:
Code:
/use Tainted Core/y <----- TAINTED CORE TO: %t !!!/ra <----- TAINTED CORE TO: %t !!!/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE TAINTED CORE!!!","WHISPER", nil, UnitName("target"));This macro will use the Tainted Core which makes you pass it to your target, then informs the raid/everyone through yell that your target has the Tainted Core, then whispers him that he has the Tainted Core. The /y and /ra parts are just announces, you can edit it to your liking and do /s instead. This macro, however does not take into account if your target is out of range or out of line of sight. It is just a simple macro for you to put into one of your hotkey buttons so that you don't need to open your bag and look for it.
Strider Kiting
Kiting the Coilfang Strider can be a hard task, since you need to move continuously, and make sure you are at the top of its aggro list at all times. If you stay focused purely on kiting and not minding anything else around you, this can be easy, but with all the commotion going on in phase 2, you get challenged. One thing to take note for kiting is to make sure you are on the right path for kiting. Don't stray too far out to the edge of the platform or you'll have your strider hit those stair group people and get them feared.
Don't bring them to the center as well, all the melee and the elite tanks are there and getting them feared can create chaos on their part. If you are having made to kite 2 striders at once, the strider DPS is the issue and will need to be resolved. It is impossible for you to kite multiple striders at once, where you need to gain aggro on both while kiting. Also, getting the second strider while you are kiting another one is pretty hard especially if the next strider is in the opposite side.
Dealing with Leakers
So what are 'leakers'? They are basically Enchanted Elementals that were allowed to pass by the stair duty DPS since they need to kill/loot a Tainted Elemental. This happens a few times in phase 2 where it gets pretty busy with everything and you are on your 2nd/3rd generator already. Enchanted Elementals reaching Lady Vashj also buffs her damage by 5% for the next phase, so it is important that you don't let a single Enchanted Elemental pass through. To fix leakers, have some of your melee DPS break off from killing the elites and focus on killing those leakers before they reach Lady Vashj. Those elementals have only a few health anyway, they should basically die with a few ability hits from the melee.
Transition to Phase 3
Now that you are on your final Shield Generator, and a Tainted Elemental has spawned, you are basically on your way to phase 3. At this point everyone is still busy with everything, so everyone needs to calm down and focus on their job. Once the Tainted Core has been looted, pass it on the respective Generator guy and let him keep the core until the suitable time for transition before using it on the generator.
Essentially, you will want a phase transition when there are no new elite / strider spawns on the raid, specifically when a strider is almost dead and before a new one spawns. Basically, you will need to monitor spawn timers for this. Having boss mods is great to monitor these timers. Now, once you feel you are ready to transition, make sure the main tank is not currently tanking an elite. If he is, try to have the melee kill his elite fast, or if the off tank is not tanking any, just have him taunt the elite off the main tank. Once the main tank is free, deactivate the last shield and have the main tank catch Lady Vashj. Phase 3 begins.
Phase 3
During the transition, everyone should try to finish off any remaining adds before focusing on Lady Vashj. This will give the main tank some time to build aggro on Lady Vashj so that everyone can just basically go all out since phase 3 has a soft enrage with the Toxic Spore Bats. Phase 3 is basically phase 1 with the Toxic Spore Bats. These spore bats is basically Lady Vashj's soft enrage timer, since they fill the platform with toxic goo which is very deadly if anyone is in it.
The goo lasts for several seconds, maybe a minute, but don't count on it. At the start of phase 3, these bats spawn slowly and very few at a time. As time goes on, these bats increase in number and spawn more. Eventually, you will be overrun by the bats, with them covering most of the platform with poisonous puddle that you won't have anywhere to run from anymore. This phase is basically 50%-0% for like 3-4 minutes, until the toxic spore bats start to overrun you. During this phase, have a couple ranged DPS kill the toxic spore bats, preferrably hunters, so you can reduce the toxic pools at the start.
At this phase, melee should start to shine, since they will be on the boss almost all the time. Everyone should be looking on the floor for green goo and should avoid them or you will just die from it if you stand in it. Remember, its just phase 1 with the green goo on the floor, so make sure everyone is still spread out. Focus, do your job, and you will win!
Healer Notes
Tank healers should be on the ball when healing the tank on phases 1 and 3. Vashj has the ability to do spike damage on the tank with Shock Blast (when Grounding Totem isn't down). For phase 2, there are tons of raid damage everywhere due to Lady vashj's Forked Lightning. It can only be healed through since it cannot be outranged / line of sight. Also, don't forget to heal the kiter as well. The strider has Mind Blast ability which deals around 3k damage, so if the kiter isn't topped off from Forked Lightnings, then a Mind Blast hits him, he might die from it, resulting into a wipe.
With Lady Vashj dead, Serpentshrine Cavern is clear, and you have just gotten one of the 2 Vials of Eternity needed for the Scale of the Sands epic ring quest (previous Mount Hyjal attunement quest). Congratulations on your tier5 headgears!
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