General Vezax Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

General Vezax is the 13th boss found in Ulduar, directly before Yogg-Saron himself. This fight has unique challenges for players to overcome as General Vezax will remove players' mana regeneration almost entirely with his Aura of Despair. This fight has a hard mode that requires players to forgo their mana regeneration entirely.

• Threat may be an issue for casters getting buffed by the Shadow Crash, especially if you are doing hard mode.
• Ranged DPS must be ready to quickly move away from everyone else if you get debuffed with Mark of the Faceless.
• Assign and follow an interrupt order for Searing Flames; do not let any of these casts go through, or you can easily wipe.

• Be ready to quickly move away from everyone else if you get debuffed with Mark of the Faceless.
• You must be mindful of your mana and casts this fight. Do not blindly spam heals similar to other fights.
• Be ready to top the tank and use a defensive ability while Vezax is buffed by Surge of Darkness.

• Be sure always to have either a personal or external defensive ability ready for the Surge of Darkness buff every minute.
• Threat may be an issue for casters getting buffed by the Shadow Crash, especially if you are doing hard mode.

• Aura of Despair
• Mark of the Faceless
• Searing Flames
• Shadow Crash
• Surge of Darkness

• Saronite Animus
• Saronite Barrier
• Profound Darkness

The General Vezax fight has a few unique mechanics players must learn to play around, namely the Aura of Despair that prevents most forms of mana regeneration. Learning to play around this through spell usage and the other available mechanics is crucial to overcoming this boss.

Saronite Vapors will spawn every 30 seconds during this fight. These are attackable gas clouds with low health. If killed, they will great a green puddle on the floor, granting players the Saronite Vapors buff, converting their life into mana. Standing in these green puddles is the only way to regenerate mana on this fight, but it comes at the cost of health. Every 2 seconds you stand in the puddle will double the amount of life taken and mana given, ramping up quickly. It is not recommended to go past about 5 stacks as this damage doubles every stack and can kill you if not topped between or leave you low enough to die to another mechanic. Stepping out of the green puddle will remove your stacks, so dance in and out if you need more mana.

Frequently during the encounter, Vezax will cast Shadow Crash at a ranged player, firing a large shadow projectile from himself to that player's current location. Upon reaching that location, Shadow Crash will explode, dealing serious Shadow damage to all nearby enemies and knocking them back a short distance. Since the Shadow Crash chooses where it will land at the start of its travel, players can quickly move away from the impact location to avoid damage and knockback. All ranged players must be ready to move quickly from the projectiles, as healers must preserve as much mana as possible on this encounter due to the Aura of Despair.

When the Shadow Crash projectile hits the ground, it will leave behind a purple pool on the floor, which grants players that stand inside it the Shadow Crash buff, granting them: 100% increased magic damage, 100% increased casting speed, 75% reduced mana costs and reduces healing done by 75%. This buff is crucial for DPS to maintain as the reduced cost of spells is the only way for mana users to deal damage without running out of mana.

To prevent having multiple ranged DPS constantly moving to avoid the Shadow Crashs, it is ideal to split your ranged DPS into multiple groups. This will allow more ranged DPS to stand still in the purple pools and maintain the buff while burning down the boss.

Ranged players will also need to be ready to deal with Mark of the Faceless, which General Vezax will apply to a random ranged player only. This debuff must be immediately moved out of the raid away from all other players, as it will siphon any nearby ally's life and greatly overheal Vezax, making this fight last much longer than it should. Use any movement spells available to your class and quickly move away from your group without walking into other groups. This debuff with almost always heal Vezax at least once or twice, so be sure to keep a Mortal Strike type debuff applied at all times to cut this healing down.

While ranged players are dealing with the constant Shadow Crashs and Mark of the Faceless, melee players will need to be alert and deal with the Searing Flames casts. This cast must be interrupted at all times and never allowed to go through, or the raid will take a massive spike of Fire damage and your tank's armor will be reduced by 75%, almost certainly killing them. Follow a kick assignment rotation, and keep this cast from going through.

Roughly every minute, General Vezax will buff himself with Surge of Darkness, doubling his physical damage dealt for 10 seconds. Tanks will need to use a personal defensive cooldown or get an external cooldown used on them to survive this damage.

The hard mode of this fight is engaged by leaving all of the Saronite Vapors alive. This means there will be no Saronite Vapors mana regeneration available, requiring players to utilize the Shadow Crash buff to defeat this encounter fully. If attempting the hard mode, DPS must also be aware of any Saronite Vapors spawns and avoid accidentally attacking them, as this will prevent the hard mode from starting. After eight Saronite Vapors have spawned, if all of them are still alive, they will merge and form a new enemy, Saronite Animus.

When the Saronite Animus spawns it will place Saronite Barrier on General Vezax, reducing all damage taken by 99% until it dies. This means you will swap all DPS over to the Animus, but you still must be mindful of Vezax. The Animus does not stop Vezax from using any of his abilities; the Shadow Crash, Searing Flames and Surge of Darkness will still occur and must be dealt with accordingly. This especially means interrupts will need to be on point to stop the Searing Flames from going through.

The Saronite Animus hits fairly hard, requiring a second tank to grab it when it spawns. Casters, in particular, will need to be ready with any threat reduction or threat drops. It is easy to pull aggro on this freshly spawned mob when the Shadow Crash puddle buffs your magic damage. This is where you will want to use all major cooldowns to kill the Animus to remove the Saronite Barrier quickly and return to damaging Vezax himself.

Item	Type/Slot
Choker of the Abyss	Neck
Pendant of Endless Despair	Neck
Underworld Mantle	Cloth Shoulder
Saronite Animus Cloak	Back
Vestments of the Piercing Light	Cloth Chest
Bindings of the Depths	Leather Wrist
Gauntlets of the Wretched	Plate Hands
Darkstone Ring	Finger
Shadowbite	One Hand Dagger
Hoperender	Polearm

Item	Type/Slot
Drape of the Faceless General	Back
Leggings of Profound Darkness	Cloth Legs
Aesuga, Hand of the Ardent Champion	Main Hand Mace
Void Sabre	One Hand Sword
Tortured Earth	Staff

Item	Type/Slot
Helm of the Faceless	Plate Helm
Mantle of the Unknowing	Cloth Shoulder
Grips of the Unbroken	Leather Hands
Belt of the Darkspeaker	Cloth Waist
Belt of Clinging Hope	Plate Waist
Darkcore Leggings	Mail Legs
Boots of the Forgotten Depths	Mail Feet
Boots of the Underdweller	Plate Feet
Metallic Loop of the Sufferer	Finger
Ring of the Vacant Eye	Finger
The General's Heart	Trinket
Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned	Polearm
Scepter of Lost Souls	Wand
Idol of the Corruptor	Idol
Libram of the Sacred Shield	Libram

Item	Type/Slot
Pendulum of Infinity	Neck
Vestments of the Blind Denizen	Leather Chest
Handwraps of the Vigilant	Cloth Helm
Flare of the Heavens	Trinket
Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion	Two Hand Sword

General Vezax is just one of the 14 encounters present in the Ulduar raid of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. If you would like to learn more about the other fights and their respective loot, please see our Ulduar Raid Hub page below.