Heroic Vexiona Boss Guide

BY Andrew Miesner / January 17, 2020

Vexiona is a three phase encounter, and is accompanied by multiple adds throughout the fight.

Phase 1

  • Encroaching Shadows
    • Debuff cast on 3 random players that deals 71k Shadow damage immediately to the affected players, and anyone within 9 yards
      • Visible purple circle around affected people
    • After 8s, the debuff expires and deals 71k Shadow again to the affected players, and anyone within 9 yards
    • Leaves behind a puddle of shadow goop wherever the debuff expires at
      • Puddle deals 71k Shadow every 1s to anyone standing in it
  • Twilight Breath
    • Frontal cone ability, cast at the active tank
    • Dodgeable by everyone but the active tank
    • Deals 43k Shadow every 0.4s for 1.6s
    • Also applies 1 stack of Void Corruption for each tick of damage taken

  • Void Corruption
    • Permanent DoT, deals 4,400 Shadow damage every 3s
  • Despair
    • Cast at 0:10, 0:47 each time in Phase 1
    • Debuff placed on the tank
    • Deals 53k Shadow every 1s for 6s
      • After 6s, explodes on the raid
      • Deals 36k Shadow damage, PLUS 90% of the target tank’s missing health to the entire raid
      • So, if the tank has 600k HP and is at 50%, this explosion will deal 306k to the entire raid ((300k * 0.9)+36k)
  • Void Ascendant
    • Powerful Void add that begins the fight alongside Vexiona
      • Annihilation
        • Frontal ability, deals 18k Shadow damage every 0.25s for 5 seconds
        • Each tick that deals damage to you applies a debuff, increasing damage taken from Annihilation by 25% for 6s. Stacks up to 20 stacks
        • This ability can damage players AND the Cultist adds present in the encounter
        • It’s targeted at the tank with threat, and followed that tank if they move

  • Gift of the Void
    • When the Void Ascendant dies, leaves behind a void orb that can be picked up
    • The player who picks up the ball as all of their Void Corruption stacks removed
  • Dark gateway
    • Vexiona creates a gateway, dealing 125k Shadow damage to the raid, and spawning multiple Cultist adds
    • Fanatical Cultist
      • Deals weak melee damage, needs to be tanked
      • Upon reaching 100 energy, becomes immune to CC and starts transforming into a new Void Ascendant
    • Spellbound Ritualist
      • Basically a warlock add
      • Casts Void Bolt, which deals 160k Shadow damage to the target
        • Interruptible
    • Sinister Soulcarver
      • Rogue type add
      • Spiteful Assault
        • Teleports to a random location up to 15 yards away
        • Then deals 50k Shadow damage to the nearest player every 0.4s for 4s
        • Casting Spiteful Assault removes Root and Slow effects from the Soulcarver

Phase 2 – 1:25, 3:32

  • When Vexiona reaches 100 energy, she flies up and becomes unattackable for about 50 seconds. This begins Phase 2
  • As she flies up, Vexiona empowers one Cultist to become a Void Ascendant
    • Void Ascendant works just like the P1 one. Same abilities.
  • Twilight Decimator
    • Vexiona breathes twilight flames in a line from overhead
    • Deals 893k Shadow damage if you’re hit by the initial impact
    • The flames themselves deal 43k Shadow damage every 0.5 seconds from standing in them after they land
  • Encroaching Shadows
    • Continues occurring just like Phase 1
  • After she casts Twilight Decimator 3 times, she’ll land back on the platform, and you re-enter Phase 1
  • You’ll continue doing Phase 1 and Phase 2 until Vexiona reaches 40% HP

Phase 3 – 40% HP

  • No more adds spawn once Phase 3 starts
  • Empowered Void Corruption
    • All abilities now cause a stack of Void Corruption to any player when they take damage
  • Encroaching Shadows
    • Continues exactly as it did in P1 and P2
  • Twilight Breath
    • Works same as P1, frontal cone
  • Terrifying Presence
    • All players have their haste reduced by 100% unless they’re within 6 yards of another player
  • Heart of Darkness
    • Casted ability, deals 714k Shadow to all players
    • Damage taken reduced by distance
    • Big obvious glowing red circle under the boss. Get far enough away that you’re out of the circle
    • If you have Terrifying Presence debuff when the Heart of Darkness damage goes out, you’re feared for 8s and gain 1 extra stack of Void Corruption

  • Desolation
    • Vexiona debuffs the tank with Desolation, reducing their movement speed by 50%][
    • Also creates a large purple soak circle under the tank
    • Soak circle deals 803k Shadow damage after 5s
      • Also applies 30 Void Corruption stacks, split evenly among all players that soak
    • If less than 3 players soak this, Vexiona gains a 100% increased damage buff and immediately re-casts Desolation

Strategy

  • Phase 1
    • Tank the boss where she starts, but facing the right-hand side (looking towards the boss from where you come into the room)
      • The other tank needs to pick up the add (obviously)
      • Tank the add under the boss, but facing a different direction than the other tank
        • This is to prevent Annihilation from hitting anyone other than the add tank
    • The rest of the raid should be to the side of the boss
    • Lust on pull, nuke down the add, but don’t let it die until after the 2nd Twilight Breath from the boss happens at 0:25
      • The tank on Vexiona should grab the Void orb after the 3rd Breath at 0:45
      • When the adds spawn, the tank who’d been holding the Ascendant add needs to pick them up and bring them under the boss for cleave
        • You’ll need ranged DPS to interrupt the Ritualist, or a Death Grip
    • Players afflicted with Encroaching Shadow need to move to the back of the room to drop their puddles
      • You can, and should try to, drop these on older puddles
    • When the tank is afflicted with the Despair debuff, healers will want to bomb heals into that tank. The more healing you pump into the tank here, the less raid healing you’ll need to do after it explodes
    • When the little adds are up, DPS should be focusing DPS on Vexiona with cleave blowing up the adds. You don’t want everyone to hardswap to AoE and pad meters.
  • Phase 2
    • A new group of small adds spawns a couple seconds before P2 begins, then one Cultist becomes an Ascendant
      • Focus damage on the Ascendant, with cleave melting the rest of the adds
      • When the Ascendant dies, your tank with Void Corruption should grab the orb and reset stacks
    • Encroaching Shadows continues being cast, so you’ll need to keep handling that like in P1 and drop it at the edge of the room
    • Twilight Decimator is the standard flyover breath attack. Vexiona will fly to the side of the room, picking either Front, Middle, or Back. After a couple second delay, she’ll fly in a straight line from one side of the room to the other, breathing void evil fire on whichever zone she picked
      • After she makes a pass, there’s a few seconds of downtime, then she’ll pick a new zone and repeat the process
      • It’ll then happen a 3rd time
      • As a note, the flame from the previous pass dissipates once a new pass begins. This means if she does Middle first, as soon as she starts flying down her next zone the flames will dissipate and you can stand in the Middle as a safe spot
      • After 3 passes, she’ll drop back down and you’ll re-enter Phase 1
    • You’ll repeat between Phase 1 and Phase 2 until Vexiona reaches 40% HP
  • Phase 3
    • Encroaching Shadows continues like it did the rest of the fight. Keep dropping it off to the sides
    • Make sure you have a friend in your raid, and hold hands. Don’t let yourself be alone, being lonely makes you lose all your haste =(
    • When Vexiona casts Heart of Darkness (big glowing red circles under the boss) GTFO away from the boss
      • Make sure you’re still holding hands with someone, you don’t want to be lonely and scared!
    • When Desolation goes out on the tank, you’ll want at least 5 people total to soak it. More is better.
    • As this phase goes on, the raid damage can get intense. Healers will want to have all raid CDs available for when the boss is below 20%, and use them as needed from that point on to keep the raid stable
    • Nuke boss, healers blow your loads on the raid, boss falls over. Ggs.

Positioning

Keep the boss near where she starts. Tank the add (X) right under her, with the tank facing away from the boss tank. Melee stand on the other side, with heals/ranged loosely spread. Drop Encroaching Shadows near the back, and close to each other, denoted by the circles below.

Video Guide